Vox: Almost everyone in French politics is working to stop Le Pen

Our Martin Michelot contributed to an article about the second round of the French presidential elections on Vox.

On the seemigly out-of-the-way Marine Le Pen, trying to reach her supporters during the last weeks of her campaign, our Martin Michelot commented:

All of this was an appeal to the original base of the party.

It shows she cannot live without the past, (...) she had to resort to identity politics, saying what she said about the deportation of Jews — she had to rally the base.”

Most candidates move toward the center in the second round. Le Pen may move further to the right as she doubles down on direct appeals to her base. Le Pen’s voters, Michelot adds, respond well to “inflammatory rhetoric.”

The whole article is available on Vox here.

Martin Michelot
Senior Associate Research Fellow

Expertise: NATO and transatlantic security, European foreign policy and defense, French politics, elections and society, Visegrad Four and Central Europe, EU institutional issues