How painful it must be, in recent weeks, to be Eric Zemmour scrutinizing recent elections in democracies around Europe! Sweden, Italy, Denmark: In six weeks, his fantasy of a right-wing alliance between mainstream conservatives and the far right has come true three times, two of them successfully – only the Danish right and far right failed to topple the Social Democratic prime minister, in the elections on Tuesday, November 1. In France, nothing of the sort has happened. At first glance, Mr. Zemmour, who was soundly defeated in the French presidential election, is indeed the only one to advocate today for such an alliance between the conservative Les Républicains (LR), the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) and the far-right Reconquête!, Mr. Zemmour's party.
Perhaps he will find something to cheer about in two other elections in France: The race for the presidency of the RN, won on Saturday, November 5, by MEP Jordan Bardella; and the race to head LR, in December. In both cases, Mr. Bardella and LR favorite Eric Ciotti seem to be the most likely candidates for uniting disparate electorates.
At LR, many believe the decades-old "dam" holding back the far right could break if Mr. Ciotti were to be elected to head the party. Although he denies this, his publicly stated preference for Mr. Zemmour in a hypothetical duel against Emmanuel Macron left a mark. Mr. Ciotti's alliance with Laurent Wauquiez, the very right-wing president of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region and former head of LR, is, for some, a weak signal of a desire to bring the right together outside the walls of its mainstream parties.
"Eric Ciotti does not want it at all, he never stops reaffirming it," said his supporter and fellow MP Eric Pauget. "If he is elected, it could bring back people who used to vote on the right, who went to the RN or Reconquête! but who would be seduced by a Republican right that is firm" on law and order, he believes, citing the example of Nicolas Sarkozy's victorious presidential campaign in 2007. Mr. Ciotti's party leadership rival Aurélien Pradié clearly refuses an alliance on his right "for ethical, moral and tactical reasons." But only the last point seems to hold Mr. Ciotti back.
'This union would only lead to our disappearance'
When, on October 24, the newspaper L'Opinion asked him if he could "guarantee" that LR would never participate in a union of the right, the Mr. Ciotti replied: "I don't believe in alliances between apparatuses. My only objective will be to make the Republican right the major axis and the pivot of French political life. Today, this union would only lead to our disappearance."
Political marriages, according to the right, are made from a position of strength, not weakness. Nevertheless, if the 2024 European elections are again disastrous for LR, many predict that the party will be faced with a historic choice for its survival.
At this crossroads, LR could meet with Reconquête!. Mr. Zemmour continues to see the union of the right as the salvation of his camp, after having hoped for it during the entire presidential campaign. Failing to embody the savior of the country, he now sees himself as the savior of his camp, convinced that RN leader Marine Le Pen will never come to power alone – in the absence of votes from the bourgeoisie. Mr. Zemmour sees a right-left divide being reconstituted, polarized around the question of identity. In agreement on these themes, figures such as Mr. Ciotti, Mr. Bardella and him could overcome their differences.
"In a coalition, you necessarily have differences. The idea is to agree on a certain number of fundamentals," said his ally Marion Maréchal, who is a niece of Ms. Le Pen. "Matteo Salvini [Lega Nord, far right] has real fundamental differences with Silvio Berlusconi [Forza Italia, right], but they managed to get along." Like the former pundit, the granddaughter of RN founder Jean-Marie Le Pen relies on the Italian example. While conceding that the political culture in France is different, she emphasized that the dam between the right and the post-fascist Italian Social Movement "existed until 1994 and all it took was for Silvio Berlusconi to decide to break it. Generations change, and circumstances change. A year ago, no one imagined that [left-wing leader] Jean-Luc Mélenchon could bring socialists and environmentalists under his banner."
'The most powerful must agree'
Ms. Maréchal is also working to unite the right through her school, her media contacts and informal discussions with elected officials from other parties. But she does not hide the difficulty of the task: "Eric Ciotti evolves in an ecosystem in which he suffers from recurrent accusations of being too far to the right, and may have to give pledges to the center to avoid the losing voters to Emmanuel Macron. Jordan Bardella has an identity of his own, but it is Marine Le Pen who will remain the political leader, especially on strategy." Now, for this type of alliance to happen, "it is mechanically necessary that the most powerful agree." And the niece of Ms. Le Pen knows very well, having been at her side, that the current position of the leader of the RN is not just a posture.
Following in the footsteps of her father, Ms. Le Pen, who lost in the second round of the presidential election, refuses to be located politically on the right and believes that the votes she needs to find to go from 41% to 50.1% are located among abstentionists rather than right-wing voters. Other voters, she believes, can still be recovered among the admirers of Fabien Roussel (Communist) or François Ruffin, an idiosyncratic member of left-wing La France Insoumise (LFI).
A large proportion of RN lawmakers feel more at home on the right and say that they have observed in the Assemblée as well as in their constituencies an ideological proximity with LR elected officials. While Louis Aliot, the losing candidate for the presidency of the RN, wanted "a dialogue open to others" with an eye on LR, Mr. Bardella, on the other hand, is plotting a reconciliation with the Zemmour electorate – while being careful not to consider an agreement with Reconquête!.
"The RN has every interest in continuing to garner votes, credibility, without going through a union that would be extremely dubious and would cause controversy within the party," said Brice Teinturier, managing director of the Ipsos Group. "The challenge for the RN is rather to promote vote transfers in its favor by changing its positioning, in appearance. It is moreover in the process of being done quite naturally, quietly, at the local level."
Creation of local alliances
This is the strategy adopted by Ms. Le Pen, who, after having poached some right-wing personalities, is now encouraging the creation of local alliances. In 2026, in the local elections, she wants united candidate lists in medium-sized cities, with no label but led by the far right. This strategy has been successful for Mr. Aliot in Perpignan and Robert Ménard in Béziers, in the South. In so doing, the RN broke its promise of "neither right nor left," but gained access to responsibilities and to the traditional right-wing electorate.
As such, Ms. Le Pen validated the initiative led by RN MP Edwige Diaz in Gironde since 2018, to work locally for a "union of patriots." "The more we know each other, the more we work together at the local level, the more it allows us to gather in the second round of a national election, to obtain the reports of votes from LR," said Ms. Diaz. "It is the work of ants. But, since the legislative elections, many barriers have been broken down, fears are evaporating."
The constitution of the parliamentary staff has, however, demonstrated the difficulties of recruiting from the ranks of LR. The rallying of a heavyweight from the right would further break the dam, but Sébastien Chenu, a defector from Mr. Sarkozy's UMP in 2014, does not plan on it: "There is a common marker in LR: cowardice." The time for friendliness has not yet come.