Farmers in France and the United Kingdom are bracing for an uncertain future after dramatic election results moved both countries to the left.
For months, a right-wing resurgence has spread across Europe, largely fueled by farmers. Agricultural protests, from tractor blockades to livestock parades, put food sovereignty in focus as farmers fought Green Deal environmental reforms. The interests of nine million farmers across the bloc struck a cord with citizen priorities such as food supply and pricing, coalescing into a populist surge.
“Farmers’ anger has become a major issue for the far right across Europe,” political scientist Kevin Cunningham told POLITICO. “It may not be the number one issue, it is surprisingly effective at crystalizing resentment over economic problems.”
But shocking left-wing victories in the U.K. and France have left farmers uncertain where they stand.
Macron Allies with Far Left to Block Le Pen Victory
In France, a coalition of leftist parties known as the New Popular Front–made up of socialists, Greens, and the extreme France Unbowed party, among others–took home 182 seats in the 577-seat national assembly on the Sunday, July 7 election, ahead of both President Macron’s center-left party and allies (163 seats) and the right (143 seats).
It was a major upset. Victory for Marine Le Pen’s right-wing party, National Rally, had seemed all but inevitable. The anti-immigration, anti-EU party opposes the European Green Deal and its litany of agriculture regulations. Party president Jordan Bardella has accused President Macron of working to “kill our agriculture.”
France’s June 9 elections showed strong results for National Rally, with particularly massive majorities in rural districts. In response, President Macron called for a snap election and dissolution of the National Assembly.
Sunday’s vote was the last of two rounds in this election, with top candidates in each district facing off. Desperate to block the right, President Macron chose to ally with the extreme left in a risky, last-ditch effort. At the last minute, he urged candidates from his centrist party to resign in tight races and throw their support behind leftist opponents. Over 200 center-left candidates resigned, kneecapping the expected right-wing wave and instead giving France an ascendant far left.
As the news broke, videos of celebratory crowds waving Palestinian and party flags went viral. There were few French flags. To honor their victory, tens of thousands of leftists rioted and burned cities and neighborhoods late into the night.
In France & U.K., right wing parties win the popular vote
The French right wing won the popular vote by a wide margin–37.3%. President Macron and his allies won just 22.3% and the New Popular Front, 26.9%. Yet the right ranks third in national assembly seats, behind the two less popular factions.
It’s a confusing result reminiscent of what happened in the United Kingdom earlier in the week. In that election, conservatives received 24% of the vote share and Reform, a right wing party led by Nigel Farage, 14%, for a total of 38%. The leftist Labor party received just 34% of the votes but an overwhelming majority of seats at 65%.
Agriculture is not a priority for U.K. Labour party
Despite his party losing the popular vote, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer will preside over a historic majority in Parliament as the U.K.’s new prime minister.
In the Labour party’s 23,000-word manifesto, just 87 of those words (0.004%) address agriculture. Both Conservatives and Liberal Democrats had promised to devote an additional £1 billion to agriculture, but Labour’s plans include no farming budget.
Starmer stated that his first two priorities are to reduce the number of prison inmates by slashing sentences in half, and to stop Tory anti-immigration efforts, including a Rwanda deportation policy which he called “dead and buried.”
Since the beginning of the year, Welsh farmers have bene protesting the proposed Sustainable Farming Scheme (SFS), which would require a series of environmental actions as conditions for farm subsidies, including planting trees over 10% of farmland and dedicating an additional 10% to wildlife restoration. Farm groups claim that if the scheme were expanded to the rest of the U.K., it would put over 20,000 farms and 2 million hectares of agricultural land at risk.
British farmers do not expect an ally in their new prime minister as they attempt to push back against an oppressive tsunami of environmental regulations. In his infamous January 2023 interview with Emily Maitlis, in which he was asked to “choose between Davos or Westminster,” referring to the globalist group World Economic Forum (WEF) responsible for much of the climate policy impacting agriculture, Starmer promptly responded, “Davos.”
Macron’s snap election upends farmer progress
Before the election, France’s agricultural sector had been negotiating a policy that would make food sovereignty a public priority and agriculture a “major area of interest” for France.
The policy had been passed by the National Assembly and was due for Senate consideration. Farmers now worry their progress has been lost. If the Senate fails to approve this law, it will be up to a new gridlocked National Assembly.
Had the right won a majority, there were plans to impose a moratorium on new trade trade agreements from the EU or to create a “French agricultural exception” in trade, protecting French farmers.
France “Not Safe for Jews”
Marine Le Pen and her National Rally party supports limiting illegal immigration in France. In recent weeks, Ms. Le Pen codified her party’s support of Israel, saying it has always been a “Zionist party.”
By contrast, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the extreme France Unbowed party, is an open supporter of global terror. Mélenchon has called French Jews an “arrogant minority that lectures to the rest,” has refused to call Hamas a terrorist group or to condemn October 7, cheered Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Crimea, and has praised Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro.
Moshe Sebbag, a rabbi for the Synagogue de la Victoire in Paris, advised young French Jews to leave for Israel or a more secure country, telling The Times of Israel, “It seems France has no future for Jews.”
In France, the Political Future is Murky
In a post-election interview, Ms. Le Pen sought to rally and reassure voters.
“I’m not disappointed by a result where we double our number of MPs. In the face of a coalition of every other party, aided by the Media which took clear sides, we are the biggest party in votes and seats. The tide is rising and our victory is only deferred.”
It appears that French centrists have made their decision, however. By aligning with the communist left, they are no longer centrist. France’s political map comes down to a right that wishes to preserve its national allies and identity, and an extreme left interested in open borders and flirting with terror support. The center did not hold; perhaps it does not exist anymore.
Ms. Le Pen has disputed accusations of her party as “far right,” responding to American reporter Christiane Amanpour, “I strongly dispute the term far right, which in your country refers to small groups that are extremely radical and violent. If you like, the equivalent of what we are in the United States is between the center right and the center left with regards to ideas. I’m telling you very honestly, I think this term ‘far right’ carries a stigma and is very pejorative.”
The left promises to lower the French retirement age to 60, reinstate a wealth tax, distribute more housing benefits, and boost public sector wages by linking them to inflation. These measures are projected to cost 100 billion Euros in 2025 ($108 billion USD). Productive French citizens are already contemplating moves to Switzerland and Italy. Jean-Luc Mélenchon vowed no compromise with Emmanuel Macron’s party, saying it would “apply its program and nothing but its program.”
With no clear majority emerging from Sunday’s election, the country’s political future is murky. Unless some backroom dealings result in some patchworked coalition in days to come, France will see a hung Parliament with three large blocks facing off against each other with diametrically opposed agendas.
