(Bloomberg) — Feminist groups in France protested Sunday against the prospect of Marine Le Pen‘s party that rules the country, even though the National Rally attracts a larger share of female voters.
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The several thousand demonstrators who marched in Paris reckoned with a difficult reality: Le Pen has made progress in positioning her party as a defender of women’s rights, despite distrust among many feminist groups.
“Marine Le Pen has managed to de-demonize her party, but we will not be fooled,” said 32-year-old Chloe Rougeyres, holding a sign opposing Le Pen’s deputy. Jordan Bardella, 28, who would be the party’s choice for prime minister if it wins a majority of seats in parliament. “The problem is that he can fool some people who don’t follow politics closely.”
Le Pen has made a significant effort to overhaul her party’s image and move past the comments of its co-founder – and her father – Jean-Marie Le Pen which were seen by many as misogynistic, anti-Semitic, racist and homophobic. It’s an effort that has had an impact. According to polling firm Ipsos, the share of women willing to vote for the National Rally rose by 10 points to 30% between the 2019 and 2024 European Parliament elections.
One of her actions was to have Le Pen expel her father from the party and rename herself a ‘feminist who is not hostile to men’. She also changed her position on abortion and supported French President Emmanuel Macron’s bill to enshrine the freedom to have an abortion in the constitution, which was approved this year.
Bardella has also made an effort to appeal to women.
“I will be the prime minister who unfailingly guarantees the rights and freedoms of every girl and every woman in France,” he said in a video posted on several social media sites last week. “Equality between women and men, the freedom to dress as you please, the fundamental right to control your own body – these are non-negotiable principles.”
Protest in Paris
Yet those protesting in Paris point to evidence that the changes are not deep in the National Rally.
While Le Pen supported the constitutional amendment on abortion, twelve of her fellow MPs in her party voted against and another fourteen abstained, for a total of 88. Lawmakers from the National Rally in the European Parliament voted against or abstained of measures. on abortion and anti-harassment training.
According to Agence France-Presse, more than 200 associations, NGOs and unions called for protests in some 30 French cities on Sunday afternoon. According to police, around 13,000 people protested in Paris. Organizers claimed a total of 75,000, AFP reported.
“The Rassemblement National is a threat to women’s rights,” the CFDT union said in a statement. Members of Parliament “abstain from voting or vote against votes in favor of gender equality, the fight against violence against women, measures that could promote women’s purchasing power or health care.”
Leading polls
It’s an argument that doesn’t seem to sway her voters. In France’s parliamentary elections, the National Rally leads in opinion polls a week before the vote, ahead of an alliance of left-wing parties and with Macron’s bloc in third place. Macron dissolved the National Assembly after defeating Le Pen in this month’s European Parliament elections. The legislative vote, which will consist of two rounds, is scheduled for June 30 and July 7.
While it is difficult to predict how many seats each party will win given France’s two-step election system, polling stations that have released seat forecasts all predict that the National Rally will win the largest number of seats. They generally show that the country falls short of an outright majority.
Bardella has repeatedly said he will only become prime minister if his party wins the 289 seats needed for an absolute majority.
For 29-year-old Alix, who declined to give her surname, the National Rally’s electoral lead is no reason to give up. “The feminist environment belongs to the last fringe of the population that they have still not fully reached,” she said during the protest. “I don’t see how Marine Le Pen could be a feminist.”
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(Adds number of protesters in 10th paragraph.)
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