Marine Le Pen may reshape Europe – even if she loses

It has been a truism since the nineteenth century that international affairs do not decide French elections. Yet last week, only three days into the run-off campaign, Marine Le Pen gave a press conference setting out her foreign and defence policy vision.

At heart, it’s a classic Gaullist project. Even if she loses, it could seriously influence French policy, because much will depend on the size of Emmanuel Macron’s parliamentary majority and the strength of radical left and right groupings come the June legislative elections.

Le Pen’s international project draws a clear line between her nation-state based realpolitik – in the ascendant in France and elsewhere – and waning globalist liberal internationalism, so closely associated with Macron. Borrowing from De Gaulle, she grounds her diplomatic blueprint in three key principles. First, France is not a ‘middle ranking power but a great power’. The second is that she will be guided by ‘the defence of the national interest’. Her third principle is to return to traditional French diplomacy: ‘independence, equidistance and constancy’, by which she means independence from America and China. Though packaged differently, Macron said as much in a 2019 speech to French ambassadors.

The presidential candidate is adamant that she will withdraw France from Nato’s integrated military command, albeit not the treaty, nor the collective security inherent in article five. Macron also has a jaundiced view of Nato, labelling it ‘brain dead’. Le Pen insists her policy would restore France’s status quo from 1966 to 2009 following De Gaulle’s withdrawal. Playing to the Gaullist gallery, she refuses to place French armed forces under anything but French national sovereignty.

Until the Ukraine war she believed France should ‘re-anchor Russia to Europe.’ Macron, who has repeatedly tried to engineer a rapprochement with Putin, also shared this policy. It shouldn’t be overlooked that a Franco-Russian axis dates from their 1892 defence treaty, while also being a cardinal feature of the General’s foreign policy. Le Pen’s motive derives from age-old German rivalry, as well as from guarding against Russia reaching an alliance with China. She’s adamant that, once the Ukraine war concludes with a peace treaty, she will call for a ‘strategic rapprochement between Nato and Russia.’ Whoever wins, eventually France will be a first mover towards Moscow.

Two other foreign policy issues that depart substantially from Macron’s were outlined at Le Pen’s press conference on 13 April: Germany and the EU. The first is a sceptical view of Germany and its relationship with France, which evokes De Gaulle’s ambivalence and view that Berlin could only be a close partner if she remained subservient to Paris. That subservience has evaporated. Yet few French politicians dare speak of it, for fear of undermining the sacrosanct Franco-German axis at the heart of the EU.

While declaring she has no ‘hostility’ towards ‘the German people’, Le Pen has highlighted their ‘divergent interests’. Reiterating her trenchant criticism of not only Merkel’s energy and migratory policies, but also her ‘discreet and cunning hegemony over Europe’, she claims such policies have been detrimental to Europe and, by inference, France.

Conscious of the two countries’ economic interdependence – but also their different political traditions – she intends to conduct Franco-German relations with greater regard for French interests, in contrast to Macron’s diplomacy. For instance, Germany would be prevented from undermining France’s civil nuclear industry. On defence, Le Pen insists France and Germany have ‘irreconcilable strategic differences’ and consequently ‘we will stop all [defence] cooperation with Berlin’.

She is also adamant France will cease supporting Germany’s goal of a permanent UN security council seat. Macron, in contrast, has doubled down on the Franco-German partnership. Even if Le Pen loses, she has called out France’s subservience to Germany. There will be no returning the genie to the bottle.

Her policy towards the EU is equally caustic, and all the more so for her having renounced ‘Frexit’. She understands that, while France has one of the highest rates of Euroscepticism, its citizens don’t want to leave the EU or the Euro. Le Pen, who had campaigned for Frexit in 2012 and 2017, claims she wants to ‘save Europe’ by converting the EU into a ‘European Alliance of nations’ (conjuring up De Gaulle’s popular notion of a Europe des patries). Brussels and financial markets are fearful her programme runs contrary to the various treaty obligations and agreements France is signed up to. It would mean France being in ‘frontal opposition to Europe’, said one investment banker, which could prove a nightmare for Brussels where there is no treaty clause to eject a member state that doesn’t wish to leave.

Le Pen says she will cut France’s €9 billion (£7.5 billion) net contribution to the EU budget by €5 billion (£4.2 billion) per year. She has raised a sensitive issue that gets little French media coverage: France becoming the second largest EU net contributor since Brexit. Even if Macron wins a wafer thin parliamentary majority, he could be ambushed by opportunistic parliamentary deals on France’s EU contributions between the right and the radical left, which the National Assembly votes on annually.

The day before Le Pen’s conference, Macron grandiloquently claimed the 24 April vote was a ‘referendum on Europe’, because her election would lead to Frexit by stealth. A risky bet given French Euroscepticism. With no less temerity in the context of Ukraine, Macron insisted that ‘Europe is what protects us from crises and war’.

If the polls are correct, Le Pen won’t get to implement her foreign and defence agenda as president. But this won’t be the end of the matter. She has brought fundamental issues into the open that are shared by her rivals. Macron’s authority could be hampered if he limps across the presidential line. After Sunday, all eyes will be on the legislatives. Already the nationalist radical right is regrouping to increase its parliamentary presence. Mélenchon’s radical left is in talks with the Communists and Socialists, and will be kingmaker in seat selection.

A slim Macron win may be compounded by a feeble parliamentary majority. His ability to carry on his liberal internationalist foreign and defence agenda may be severely constrained, while some of Le Pen’s Gaullist priorities may win by stealth.