Marine Le Pen’s party won a significant victory in the first round of the French parliamentary elections. Can they be stopped? Angelique Chrisafis reports
After Marine Le Pen’s National Rally inflicted a humiliating defeat on Emmanuel Macron’s centrists in the European elections, the president called a snap parliamentary election. The decision was a gamble, giving voters an ultimatum: to back him, or to accept the consequences of a far-right victory.
After the first round of voting, his roll of the dice does not seem to have paid off, and the idea of the RN winning is terrifying for many of France’s minority communities. The Guardian’s Paris correspondent, Angelique Chrisafis explains the roots of the RN and how Le Pen has sought to detoxify it while holding to its core value of prioritising certain French citizens over others.