May 28, 2014
Despite an elevated voter participation rate compared to the 2009 elections, (42.5% in 2014 versus 40.5% in 2009), the Front national dominated the recent May 2014 European Parliament elections. Front national leader Marine Le Pen garnered 24.9% of the total French vote, beating out the UMP (20.3%) and the Parti socialiste (13.9%).
The FN has quadrupled its success since the 2009 elections and will now have 24 representatives in the European Parliament, where Marine Le Pen and her father, Jean Marie Le Pen both hold seats. The party’s success worries many French Muslims, as Marine Le Pen’s rhetoric is often anti-immigration.
“Too anti-Islam…too extreme” explains why other far-right parties in Europe refuse to ally with the FN in Parliament. Among such parties are the United Kingdom’s UKIP, Denmark’s UF, and the PS in Finland.
The party’s success puts it at the threshold for the number of seats required to form a parliamentary group, which requires 25 seats. However, in order to do so the elected leaders must come from at least seven countries. For the moment, the FN only has four allies: Italy’s LN, Austria’s FPO, Belgium’s VB and PVV in the Netherlands.
