French Conservatives Inch Toward Le Pen National Rally Pact

French con­ser­v­a­tives are inch­ing toward a pact with Le Pen’s Nation­al Ral­ly that could enable far-right takeover. On 20 Novem­ber 2025, The Guardian report­ed that Les Répub­li­cains chair Bruno Retail­leau’s call for not one vote for the left helped Nation­al Ral­ly-allied can­di­date sweep to byelec­tion vic­to­ry in south­west France. The arti­cle begins:

‘Not one vote for the left!” That call from Bruno Retail­leau, chair of the main­stream con­ser­v­a­tive par­ty Les Répub­li­cains (LR), helped a can­di­date allied with Marine Le Pen’s far-right Nation­al Ral­ly (RN) to sweep to vic­to­ry in a byelec­tion run-off against a social­ist in south­west France last month after the cen­tre-right can­di­date was elim­i­nat­ed in the first round. It was a clear sign that, despite fre­quent denials, the much-dimin­ished heirs to Charles de Gaulle’s con­ser­v­a­tive move­ment are inch­ing towards a con­tro­ver­sial “union of the right” that could put Le Pen or her pro­tege, Jor­dan Bardel­la, in the Élysée Palace in 2027.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/nov/20/french-conservatives-inching-pact-le-pen-could-enable-far-right-takeover-country

Key Points

• Recent opin­ion polls show Nation­al Ral­ly has 35% sup­port or high­er, whether pres­i­den­tial can­di­date is Le Pen, cur­rent­ly barred from run­ning by EU funds embez­zle­ment con­vic­tion she is appeal­ing, or 30-year-old par­ty pres­i­dent Jor­dan Bardel­la, while poten­tial Les Répub­li­cains can­di­dates score under 10%.
• Les Répub­li­cains Euro­pean Par­lia­ment group leader François-Xavier Bel­lamy vot­ed for the Nation­al Ral­ly cen­sure motion against Euro­pean Com­mis­sion pres­i­dent Ursu­la von der Leyen, while LR vot­ed with the hard right against EU car­bon emis­sions tar­gets, show­ing con­verg­ing hos­til­i­ty to cli­mate policies.
• Lau­rent Wauquiez recent­ly met Éric Zem­mour, rad­i­cal anti-Islam cru­sad­er to the right of Le Pen, to dis­cuss the pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry elec­tion open to all con­tenders from cen­tre right to far right as a way of build­ing bridges on the right of Les Républicains.
• The Cen­tre-right Euro­pean Peo­ple’s Par­ty, to which Les Répub­li­cains belongs, is increas­ing­ly will­ing to push through a dereg­u­la­tion agen­da with far-right votes, as seen in the 13 Novem­ber vote on cor­po­rate sus­tain­abil­i­ty and sup­ply-chain trans­paren­cy rules, mir­ror­ing the ero­sion of the French firewall.

France’s Far Right Anchors Global National Conservative Alliance

France occu­pies a piv­otal posi­tion with­in the Glob­al Nation­al Con­ser­v­a­tive Alliance, with Marine Le Pen’s Nation­al Ral­ly serv­ing as the largest del­e­ga­tion in the Patri­ots for Europe par­lia­men­tary group.

In June 2025, over 6,000 sup­port­ers gath­ered in rur­al Mor­mant-sur-Vernisson for a “Vic­to­ry Day” ral­ly where Le Pen and Vik­tor Orbán reject­ed EU fed­er­al­ism while call­ing for a “Europe of nations” based on sov­er­eign­ty and Chris­t­ian her­itage. Le Pen declared “We are not provinces of an empire” as she con­demned Brus­sels’ trans­for­ma­tion of the EU into a uni­tary state, strip­ping mem­ber nations of their com­pe­ten­cies. Accord­ing to France24, Orbán boast­ed of hav­ing pushed back migrants despite EU sanc­tions, telling the crowd they would not allow out­siders to “destroy our cities, rape our girls and women, kill peace­ful citizens.”

This French-Hun­gar­i­an axis exem­pli­fies the broad­er ide­o­log­i­cal coali­tion unit­ing right-wing move­ments world­wide under shared prin­ci­ples of nation­al sov­er­eign­ty and oppo­si­tion to glob­al insti­tu­tions. The alliance rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant shift from Rea­gan-era con­ser­vatism toward nation­al­ist and pro­tec­tion­ist agen­das, with Hun­gary serv­ing as the bridge between Euro­pean and Amer­i­can con­ser­v­a­tives after Rus­si­a’s role dimin­ished fol­low­ing its inva­sion of Ukraine. Beyond France, the move­ment encom­pass­es Spain’s VOX, Italy’s League, Aus­tri­a’s Free­dom Par­ty, and oth­er par­ties coor­di­nat­ing through transna­tion­al plat­forms. As Carnegie Endow­ment analy­sis con­firms, these net­works lever­age con­fer­ences like CPAC to fos­ter per­son­al ties and posi­tion think tanks as con­duits for coop­er­a­tion, though coor­di­na­tion still lags behind main­stream cen­trist coalitions.

The Trump admin­is­tra­tion’s return has ener­gized this alliance while cre­at­ing ten­sions. Ris­ing right-wing pop­ulists in France and the UK are cap­i­tal­iz­ing on eco­nom­ic and migra­tion crises as cen­trist lead­ers lose ground, with Nation­al Ral­ly’s Jor­dan Bardel­la ben­e­fit­ing from dis­il­lu­sion­ment with main­stream par­ties ahead of France’s 2027 pres­i­den­tial elec­tions. Euro­pean Coun­cil on For­eign Rela­tions research reveals that MAGA Repub­li­cans estab­lished con­nec­tions with the Euro­pean far-right dur­ing the Biden admin­is­tra­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly in Hun­gary, with orga­ni­za­tions like the Her­itage Foun­da­tion involved in devel­op­ing alter­na­tive EU visions. This con­ver­gence means lib­er­al Euro­peans now face simul­ta­ne­ous inter­nal chal­lenges from the embold­ened Euro­pean far-right and exter­nal pres­sure from U.S. lever­age in trade negotiations.

Exter­nal References

• Le Pen pledges to ‘take pow­er in Europe’ as far-right lead­ers ral­ly in France
• The Euro­pean Rad­i­cal Right in the Age of Trump 2.0
• When cul­ture war and trade war clash: Trump’s trou­bled alliance with Europe’s far right

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