Far-right leaders rally in France to mark European election gains

Marine Le Pen stood alongside Viktor Orbán, Matteo Salvini, Santiago Abascal and Andrej Babiš on Monday in Mormant-sur-Vernisson, a commune south of Paris, to mark the first anniversary of the National Rally's best-ever performance in European Parliament elections. The gathering, organised by Le Pen's party, was billed as a show of unity for the Patriots for Europe group, one of three rival far-right formations now sitting in Strasbourg. Several thousand supporters attended; organisers of a counter-demonstration in nearby Montargis put their own turnout at roughly 4,000.

A rhetoric of replacement and reconquest

Orbán, who has made confrontation with Brussels a hallmark of his fourteen years in power, set the tone. He described European migration policy as "an organised exchange of populations to replace the cultural base" of the continent and boasted of having "pushed back migrants" despite incurring sanctions. "We will not let them destroy our cities, rape our girls and women, kill peaceful citizens," he told the crowd. Le Pen, adopting a more institutional register, called the European Union a "graveyard of politically unfulfilled promises" and "woke and ultra-liberal", before delivering the line that has become her movement's refrain: "We don't want to leave the table. We want to finish the game and win, to take power in France and in Europe and give it back to the people."

Salvini, speaking as Italy's deputy prime minister, framed migration as an existential threat. "The threat to our children is an invasion of illegal immigrants, mainly Islamists, financed and organised in the silence of Brussels," he said, urging European "patriots" to "work together" to "take back control of the destiny and future of Europe." Abascal and Babiš offered shorter endorsements of the shared platform. The rhetoric, while familiar from national campaigns, was notable for its coordination: five leaders from four member states, all members of the same parliamentary group, appearing on a single stage to rehearse a common script.

Patriots for Europe and the fragmentation of the far right

The Patriots for Europe group was formed after the June 2024 elections, when the National Rally, Fidesz, the League, Vox and ANO 2011 combined to create the third-largest force in the European Parliament with 84 seats. It sits alongside the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), led by Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy and including Poland's Law and Justice, and the smaller Europe of Sovereign Nations group, which gathers the German AfD and allies. The three groups share a broad eurosceptic and anti-immigration orientation but differ on Russia policy, economic doctrine and willingness to cooperate with the mainstream European People's Party. Monday's rally was, in part, a demonstration that Patriots for Europe intends to act as a cohesive bloc rather than a loose affiliation.

That cohesion remains untested in legislative work. The group has no formal role in the Commission or Council, and its members vote differently on key dossiers, from Ukraine aid to trade agreements. Orbán's Fidesz, for instance, has repeatedly blocked or delayed EU support for Kyiv, while Meloni's ECR has backed it. The League has oscillated between government and opposition in Rome. Vox remains outside Spain's national executive. The rally's unity was therefore more performative than programmatic, a point not lost on the counter-demonstrators in Montargis.

Le Pen's legal shadow and the succession question

The most consequential uncertainty hanging over the French far right is not ideological but judicial. In March 2025, Le Pen was convicted of embezzling European Parliament funds to pay party staff, a judgment that carries a five-year ban on holding public office, provisionally enforceable. She has appealed; the appeals court is not expected to rule before late 2026 at the earliest. If the ban stands, she would be ineligible for the presidential election scheduled for April 2027. Macron, barred by term limits from seeking a third mandate, will not be on the ballot.

Into that vacuum steps Jordan Bardella, 29, president of the National Rally since 2021 and Le Pen's designated heir. Polls consistently place him ahead in first-round scenarios, often above 30 per cent. In recent months he has softened his public image, a long-form television interview with Karine Le Marchand, a popular presenter, was explicitly designed to show a "softer side", while maintaining the movement's hard line on immigration, Islam and EU sovereignty. At the rally he declared: "We reject the Europe of Ursula von der Leyen. We reject the Europe of Macron... We represent the rebirth of a true Europe." The phrasing was deliberate: Bardella is campaigning for the leadership of a movement that may soon need a new standard-bearer.

Orbán's stake in a Le Pen presidency

Orbán's presence was not merely ceremonial. Hungary's prime minister has invested heavily in a European network of like-minded leaders, and a National Rally victory in 2027 would represent its most significant prize. "Without you, we will not be able to occupy Brussels... We will not be able to save Hungary from the Brussels guillotine," he told the crowd, framing Le Pen's success as a condition for his own political survival. The language, "guillotine", was characteristic of Orbán's apocalyptic style, but the calculation is straightforward: a French president drawn from Patriots for Europe would shift the Council's balance on migration, rule-of-law conditionality and the EU's long-term budget. It would also complicate the Commission's enforcement of Article 7 proceedings against Hungary, which have been stalled but not abandoned.

The relationship is transactional. Orbán needs allies in the Council to dilute qualified-majority voting on sanctions; Le Pen needs Orbán's institutional weight to legitimise her claim to lead a European conservative revolution. Both need the Patriots for Europe group to hold together despite its internal contradictions. Salvini's participation underscored the Italian dimension: the League's polling has slumped since entering government with Meloni, and Salvini is using the European stage to maintain visibility distinct from his senior coalition partner.

Domestic opposition and the Montargis counter-demonstration

Roughly twenty kilometres from the rally site, a coalition of left-wing parties, trade unions and anti-racism groups assembled in Montargis. Manon Aubry, an MEP for La France Insoumise, told journalists: "You have here the worst of the racist and xenophobic European far right that we know only too well." Organisers estimated 4,000 participants; police figures were lower, as is customary. The protest was peaceful but underscored a reality that the rally's choreography could not obscure: the French far right remains deeply polarising. Le Pen's party may lead national polls, but its unfavourability ratings remain high, and any presidential run-off would likely replay the 2022 dynamic, a broad republican front against the National Rally.

That front, however, is fracturing. The Socialist Party, the Greens and the Communists have struggled to agree on a common candidate for 2027. The centre-right, meanwhile, has coalesced around Édouard Philippe, the former prime minister who launched his Horizons party in 2021. Philippe is the only major figure to have declared his candidacy so far; others, including former interior minister Gérald Darmanin and current prime minister Gabriel Attal, are widely expected to run but have not confirmed. A divided opposition would improve Bardella's or Le Pen's path to the Élysée, but it would not guarantee victory in a two-round system designed to prevent exactly that outcome.

The European Parliament as a laboratory

The Patriots for Europe group's first year in the hemicycle offers a preview of how a far-right bloc might operate with greater institutional weight. Its MEPs have tabled amendments to dilute the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, opposed the Nature Restoration Law, and voted against the EU's asylum and migration pact, though the latter passed with a broad majority. They have also used parliamentary questions and committee positions to amplify national grievances: Orbán's Fidesz MEPs have focused on rule-of-law conditionality; the League's on agricultural exemptions; Vox's on Spanish amnesty laws. The group's coordination is real but selective, driven by national electoral calendars more than a shared legislative agenda.

That pattern is likely to persist. The European Parliament lacks the executive power of the Commission or the Council, and far-right groups have historically struggled to translate parliamentary presence into policy outcomes. Their influence is exercised instead through the Council, where national leaders meet. A Le Pen or Bardella presidency would change that calculus fundamentally, giving Patriots for Europe a voice in the room where binding decisions are taken. That is why Orbán travelled to Mormant-sur-Vernisson, and why the rally's messaging focused on "taking power" rather than merely influencing debate.

For now, the rally's imagery, five leaders, one stage, a shared vocabulary of reconquest, serves a purpose beyond the immediate audience. It signals to national electorates, to European institutions, and to the incoming Trump administration in Washington that the European far right views itself as a government-in-waiting. Whether that self-image survives contact with French jurisprudence and a two-round electoral system remains the defining question of the continent's political cycle.