Jean Louis Marie Le Pen, known as Jean-Marie Le Pen, is a French far-right politician who served as president of the National Front from 1972 to 2011 and Honorary President of the same party from 2011 to 2015.
The National Rally, known as the National Front from 1972 to 2018, is a French far-right political party, described as right-wing populist and nationalist. It is the single largest parliamentary opposition party in the National Assembly since 2022. Its candidate was defeated in the second round in the 2002, 2017 and 2022 presidential elections. It opposes immigration, advocating significant cuts to legal immigration, protection of French identity, and stricter control of illegal immigration. The party advocates a "more balanced" and "independent" French foreign policy, opposing French military intervention in Africa while supporting France leaving NATO's integrated command. It also supports reform of the European Union (EU) and its related organisations as well as economic interventionism, protectionism, and zero tolerance for breaches of law and order.
The far-right tradition in France finds its origins in the Third Republic with Boulangism and the Dreyfus affair. In the 1880s, General Georges Boulanger, called "General Revenge", championed demands for military revenge against Imperial Germany as retribution for the defeat and fall of the Second French Empire during the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71). This stance, known as revanchism, began to exert a strong influence on French nationalism. Soon thereafter, the Dreyfus affair provided one of the political division lines of France. French nationalism, which had been largely associated with left-wing and Republican ideologies before the Dreyfus affair, turned after that into a main trait of the right-wing and, moreover, of the far right. A new right emerged, and nationalism was reappropriated by the far-right who turned it into a form of ethnic nationalism, blended with anti-Semitism, xenophobia, anti-Protestantism and anti-Masonry. The Action française (AF), first founded as a journal and later a political organization, was the matrix of a new type of counter-revolutionary right-wing, which continues to exist today. During the interwar period, the Action française and its youth militia, the Camelots du Roi, were very active. Far right leagues organized riots.
Debout la France is a French political party founded by Nicolas Dupont-Aignan in 1999 under the name Debout la République as the "genuine Gaullist" branch of the Rally for the Republic. It was relaunched again in 2000 and 2002 and held its inaugural congress as an autonomous party in 2008. At the 2014 congress, its name was changed to Debout la France!.
Jérôme Rivière is a French politician, lawyer and entrepreneur who has served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 2019 to 2024. A member of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) until 2007, he was a member of the National Rally (RN), previously known as the National Front (FN), from 2017 until 2022, when he announced his support for Éric Zemmour in the 2022 presidential election and was appointed vice chairman of Zemmour's newly-founded Reconquête party.
Gilbert Georges Jean Camille René Collard is a French writer, barrister and politician serving as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) since 2019. A member of the National Rally (RN) until 2022, he was a member of the National Assembly for the 2nd constituency of Gard from 2012 until 2019. Collard also served as Secretary-General of the Rassemblement bleu Marine (RBM) since 2012, a right-wing political association and think-tank supporting Marine Le Pen. In January 2022, he left the RN for Éric Zemmour's Reconquête.
The Socialist Party is a centre-left to left-wing political party in France. It holds social-democratic and pro-European views. The PS was for decades the largest party of the "French Left" and used to be one of the two major political parties under the Fifth Republic, along with the Rally for the Republic in the late 20th century, and with the Union for a Popular Movement in the early 2000s. It is currently led by First Secretary Olivier Faure. The PS is a member of the Party of European Socialists, Progressive Alliance and Socialist International.
Patriots.eu, formerly known as the Identity and Democracy Party and the Movement for a Europe of Nations and Freedom (MENF), is a nationalist, right-wing populist and Eurosceptic European political party founded in 2014. Its Members of the European Parliament sat in the Europe of Nations and Freedom group from 2015 to 2019, then in the Identity and Democracy group between 2019 and 2024; following the 2024 European Parliament election, most of its MEPs sit within the Patriots for Europe group.
The Republicans is a liberal-conservative political party in France, largely inspired by the tradition of Gaullism. The party was formed in 2015 as the refoundation of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), which had been established in 2002 under the leadership of then-President of France, Jacques Chirac.
Le Pen is a prominent political family of France. Le Pen is a Breton surname meaning "the head", "the chief" or "the peninsula". The family has led the National Rally party since its inception in 1972, first under Jean-Marie Le Pen (1972–2011) and subsequently under his daughter Marine Le Pen (2011–2022).
Karim Ouchikh is a French politician. He is the current vice-president of the National Council of European Resistance, a far-right pan-European political group.
Jordan Bardella is a French politician who has been the president of the National Rally (RN) since 2022, after serving as acting president from September 2021 to November 2022 and as vice-president from 2019 to 2022. Bardella has also served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) since 2019, when he was the lead candidate for the RN in the European Parliament election, and has been a regional councillor of Île-de-France since 2015.
Legislative elections were held in France on 30 June and 7 July 2024 to elect all 577 members of the 17th National Assembly of the Fifth French Republic. The election followed the dissolution of the National Assembly by President Emmanuel Macron, triggering a snap election after the National Rally (RN) made substantial gains and Macron's Besoin d'Europe electoral list lost a significant number of seats in the 2024 European Parliament election in France.
Sovereignty, Identity and Freedoms is a French political party led by Karim Ouchikh. Originally described as right-wing sovereigntist, it later moved towards Identitarianism. The party had 2,000 members in 2016.
The New Popular Front is a broad left-wing electoral alliance in France. It was launched on 10 June 2024 to contest the 2024 French legislative election following the gains of far-right parties in the 2024 European Parliament election in France. The Front stood in opposition to both Ensemble, the presidential camp of Emmanuel Macron, as well as the far-right National Rally.
Nationwide protests occurred in France on 9 June 2024 in response to the National Rally (RN) party's victory in the 2024 European Parliament election and the resulting dissolution of parliament and snap elections called by French President Emmanuel Macron. Several unions and left-leaning party organizations called for demonstrations across several cities in France, as well as for creating coalitions between left-leaning and far left political parties to prevent the National Rally party from achieving victory in French parliament.
Andréa Kotarac is a French politician. He has served as a councilor from the National Rally (RN) list in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes regional council since July 2021. He was previously a member of the regional council for the Left Party (PG)/La France Insoumise (LFI) from January 2016 to September 2019.
The National Rally assistants affair is an ongoing legal case concering the far-right National Rally party in France. 27 members of the party, including its leader Marine Le Pen, are accused of having hired fictitious European Parliament assistants between 2004 and 2016 to misappropriate funds.
