French parliament approves Le Pen resolution for the first time

“Cordon sanitaire” broken at national level for the first time. A symbolic victory that says a lot.

By a slim margin, the French National Assembly approved this Thursday a non-binding resolution presented by the far-right National Union party, led by Marine Le Pen. It’s a unprecedented featwhich has already begun to raise questions about the party’s increasing normalization.

The resolution, approved by 185 votes in favor against 184 against — mainly from left-wing deputies — calls for revocation of a 1968 agreement with Algeria that facilitates Algerian immigration to France. The approval is due to the decisive support of some deputies from the right and the center, as well as the absence of several members of President Emmanuel Macron’s party, for unclear reasons.

Although the text has no legal effect, approval represents a huge symbolic victory for the National Union, until now isolated by the so-called “cordon sanitaire”, an unwritten rule that prevents collaboration with the extreme right.

“For the first time, a text presented by the National Union has been adopted,” declared Le Pen, taking advantage of the occasion to once again pressure Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu to revoke the agreement.

The resolution garnered unexpected support outside of Le Pen’s party, including 17 deputies from Horizons, the center-right party of former Prime Minister Édouard Philippe. The absence of Gabriel Attal, leader of Macron’s Renaissance party, was also decisive: only 30 of the 92 EPR deputies voted against, despite the fact that, previously, Attal had publicly defended the revocation of the agreement in the face of growing tensions between France and Algeria.

The left harshly criticized this result, accusing Attal and his party of allowing the far right to advance with a text that they consider racistat the same time granting the National Union a symbolic and unprecedented victory in the French Parliament.