Election Setbacks Leave France’s Far Right at a Crossroads

Jordan Bardella, the president of the far-right National Rally, greeted his party’s 125 newly elected lawmakers on Wednesday morning with a few congratulations — and a lot of warnings.

“You are a source of pride for millions of French people,” Mr. Bardella told the lawmakers after they entered the National Assembly, France’s lower house of Parliament, to take their seats. But now, he added, “your responsibility, my dear friends, will be to underline the credibility of our project” and “to be absolutely irreproachable in the field and with the media.”

It was a none-too-subtle reference to the controversies that marred the National Rally’s campaign in France’s snap parliamentary elections. Many party candidates made racist remarks, failed to articulate their positions or were featured in French newspaper coverage for past antisemitic comments and pro-Kremlin positions. One candidate was pulled from the race after a photograph of her wearing a Nazi cap appeared on social media.

Several National Rally leaders and analysts said the controversies played a role in the party’s third place finish after it had been widely expected to win. The disappointing election results have now placed the National Rally at a crossroads as it looks toward presidential elections in 2027.

The National Rally has spent recent years vigorously trying to sanitize its public image and take out the stain of anti-immigrant bigotry and Nazi nostalgia that have time and again undermined its efforts to portray respectability and show that it is ready to wield power. Its third-place finish in the second round of elections showed that it had not convinced enough voters that it had done so.