French far right poised for record surge in EU election, poll shows

BRUSSELS — France’s far right is forecast to record its highest-ever result in the upcoming European Parliament election, new poll data shows.

The far-right National Rally, led by outgoing member of the European Parliament (MEP) Jordan Bardella, could win 33 percent of the vote, while the far-right Reconquête party would stand at 6 percent, according to a poll from consultancy firm Portland Communications shared with POLITICO.

This would put the National Rally miles ahead of the centrist Ensemble! coalition, which includes French President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party and is expected to receive a meagre 14 percent of the vote.

The poll was conducted online in late January — as France was in the midst of large-scale farmers’ protests — among 1,034 people forming a “nationally and politically representative sample.”

It was also carried out in Italy, the Netherlands, Germany and Poland, where similar results were found among samples of similar sizes.

Far-right parties are expected to make sizeable gains everywhere but in Poland, where Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s liberal Civic Coalition is forecast to receive 35 percent of the vote.

In Germany, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is projected to win 17 percent of the vote, up from 11 percent in the 2019 EU election.

“The EU is heading into these elections with citizens in a deeply pessimistic mood,” Portland Communications CEO Victoria Dean said, adding that voters were “concerned about issues which are difficult to fix.”

In France, Germany, Italy and Poland, the cost-of-living crisis topped voters’ agenda, while the housing crisis was the top concern for Dutch respondents.

Immigration came in a close second in France, Germany and the Netherlands. In Italy and Poland, health care was the second-most cited issue.

In every country except Poland, most people reported being dissatisfied with the direction taken by their country.

France and Germany — which have center-right and center-left governments — had the highest proportion of unhappy respondents, with respectively 68 percent and 66 percent saying their country was “on the wrong path.”

In all five countries, most people said they would base their vote on domestic rather than EU-wide issues — a common outcome in EU elections campaigns, which tend to focus on national concerns.

Germany had the highest share of people saying their vote would be mainly motivated by EU issues — a mere 15 percent of respondents.

Nick Vinocur contributed reporting.