Un old Zemmourian dream has just come true on the other side of the Alps. The “post-fascist” Fratelli d’Italia party established itself as the leading Italian political party with 26% of the vote on Sunday, September 25 in the legislative elections. The right-wing alliance that Giorgia Meloni’s party formed with La Lega and Forza Italia won a total of 44% of the vote, giving it a clear and clear majority in both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate.
This success described as “historic” makes Éric Zemmour die of envy who sees himself as the leader of a right-wing Nupes. “How not to look at this victory as proof that, yes, coming to power is possible? ” reacted in a press release the former presidential candidate of 2022 (7.07%). The President of Reconquest! pleads since his conversation with the policy for the “union of the rights” French. On the eve of the last legislative elections, the “Z” had also reached out to the National Rally (RN), the Les Républicains (LR) party and Debout la France (DLF). Without success.
Immigration and Security
The Italian scenario, a few days after Sweden, is it possible in France? The question comes up in the public debate. “There are points of convergence, among right-wing parties, in particular on identity, security, cultural and family issues,” observes Victor Delage, head of studies at Fondapol, a liberal, progressive and European think tank. The numbers prove it. Among voters in the first round of the legislative elections, 49% of LRs, 59% of RNs and 75% of Zemmour voters consider that “the police should be able to use their firearms more easily during their interventions”, according to a Fondapol study published in September. The national average is only 39%.
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Other figures: 69% of LR voters, 91% of RNs and 94% of voters who slipped a Reconquest ballot! believe that “most immigrants do not share the values of [leur] country and this poses problems of cohabitation” (63% national average). As if to illustrate these data, several political figures from the conservative right and the populist right have recently castigated Emmanuel Macron’s idea of ”better distributing” immigrants on the territory, particularly in rural areas, a symbol in the imagination collective of eternal France.
Points of disagreement
“These shared values can cement an alliance project on the right. Problem: there are also strong ideological differences between the rights”, nuance Victor Delage. These are equally glaring. On the economic and fiscal level, Marine Le Pen (RN) is regularly accused of being “a woman of the left” by her competitor from the nationalist right Éric Zemmour. It is true that the tutelary figure of the National Rally insisted a lot on purchasing power and multiplied the proposals aimed at redistributing wealth during the last presidential campaign. This strategy has also been favorable to him, as evidenced by his result in the first round (23.15%).
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Even more, the rights are doing the splits on the question of the European Union. Still according to the Fondapol study, only 7% of Les Républicains voters would like a Frexit. They are much more numerous on the side of the National Rally (32%) and in the majority at Reconquête!, with 51% of favorable opinions. ” The greatest difficulty will be to build bridges on the European question, but also on other subjects related to the relationship with globalization, liberalism or even the place of France within international alliances, such as NATO. believes the director of studies at Fondapol.
Impossible ? Maybe not. Giorgia Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia, Matteo Salvini’s La Lega and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia have achieved just that. In their unitary program baptized Per l’Italia (translated here into French), the Italian right undertake to respect the Italian commitments made within the framework of the Atlantic Alliance and say they are “favorable to a stronger political integration in the European Union “. A few months ago, Matteo Salvini was nevertheless one of the leaders of the anti-EU!
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Institutional and cultural barriers
It remains to be seen whether such bridges are possible on the other side of the Alps. The culture of compromise died in France with the successive disappearances of the IIIe and IVe Republic, as historian Jean Garrigues explained in an interview with Point. “The Swedish and Italian parliamentary regimes favor alliances, confirms Victor Delage. The French institutional architecture is very different with our semi-presidential regime, where the conquest of power is more embodied by a single figure. »
If we look in the rear view mirror, the work of the historian Gilles Richard shows that the attempts to unite the rights, in particular under the parliamentary regime of the Thirde République, have always been sought after… but have often failed or come to an end.