French elections

If Le Pen beats Macron, the once-unthinkable will be all too real

A win by the leader of the French far right would see a leading European nation select a president emphatically opposed to globalization and integration, friendly to authoritarian Russia and tethered to a party, the National Front, that is steeped in a history of neo-fascism, extremism and bigotry. It could prefigure the dissolution of the European Union, trigger new economic chaos and hammer home the last nail in the coffin of an already ailing liberal order.

A Le Pen victory “means the collapse of the E.U., because the E.U. without France doesn’t make any sense,” Gerard Araud, France’s ambassador in Washington, said in a conversation with Today’s WorldView earlier this year. “And it means the collapse of the euro and a financial crisis, which will have consequences throughout the world.”