Marine Le Pen as French president would be ‘excellent’ for Israel, Likud minister says

Controversial French party’s parliamentary victory poses questions for Israel’s policy

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The right-wing National Rally (RN) Party's historic victory in the French parliamentary elections drew considerable attention in Israel, as it could result in a formerly far-right party, plagued with antisemitism, taking power in a major European country.

Despite Israel officially boycotting far-right European parties, Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli praised the victory and indicated that the Israeli government shared his joy over Marine Le Pen’s rise in influence.

“It is excellent for Israel that she will be the president of France, with 10 exclamation marks,” Chikli told the KAN news outlet on Monday.

When asked whether he thought Likud Party leader Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed with him Chikli affirmed, “I think I and Netanyahu are of the same opinion.”

The RN party has come a long way from the days when Le Pen's father, accused of Holocaust denial several times, was chairman.

Le Pen has made major efforts to distance her party from its roots, even going so far as to kick her own father out of his former party.

As Chikli noted, Le Pen recently took part in a march against antisemitism while French President Emmanuel Macron did not.

Still, many French Jews and Israelis are weary of the anti-immigrant and eurosceptic party and are hesitant to support it.

In last Sunday’s snap elections for the French parliament, which Macron called after the RN party's crushing victory in the European Parliament elections, the RN and its allies won 33% of the vote. They were followed by the left-wing New Popular Front with 28%, while Macron’s centrists ended up with a disappointing 22%

While the elections will ultimately be decided in a second round run-off next Sunday, the RN’s win has already established the party as a mainstream part of France’s political scene.

This could be a stepping stone to victory in the next presidential elections when Le Pen could succeed Macron at the helm of Europe’s second-largest economy.

For French Jews and Israelis, the New Popular Front, an alliance of the center-left Socialist Party and the far-left France Unbowed Party, which came in second place, poses another challenge.

Large parts of the alliance, including France's Unbowed leader Jean-Luc Melenchon, are either anti-Israel or outright antisemitic, have embraced protests against Israel and for Hamas in recent months, and support the Boycott, Divest, Sanction (BDS) movement against the State of Israel.

“Many Ashkenazi Jewish families here since before World War II couldn’t think to vote for National Rally, yet the Left has been antisemitic in recent times,” said Moshe Sebbag, the chief rabbi of the Grande Synagogue in Paris told The Jerusalem Post. “The Jews are in the middle because they don’t know who hates them more.”

While many Jewish organizations have called on French Jews to vote for Macron’s centrist party, which has been relatively supportive of Israel, several prominent Jewish voices in the country have openly endorsed RN as the only way to oppose the rising tide of Muslim and radical-left antisemitism.

Alain Finkielkraut, a liberal Jew who is among the country’s best-known philosophers, said: “I never imagined voting for the RN to curb antisemitism,” adding he would vote for Le Pen “if there’s no other choice and if [France Unbowed] had a real chance of reaching power.”

Historian and Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld concurred. “I would have no hesitation, I would vote for the National Rally,” he stated on LCI radio station before the elections.

“Now I’m faced with a far left that’s in the grip of [France Unbowed], which reeks of antisemitism and violent anti-Zionism, or the National Rally, which has evolved,” Klarsfeld added.

In Israel, Chikli has led the effort to build bridges to many of Europe’s rising right-wing and far-right parties, which are often openly pro-Israel, including France’s RN, Spain’s Vox and Hungary’s Orban-led government.

Viktor Orban is perhaps the first politician to come into power in a European country in recent decades, however, he has proven a true friend to Israel on numerous occasions. Similarly, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, another politician widely criticized by the media, has also been supportive of the Jewish state.

Chikli officially met with Le Pen last month for the first time, ending a decades-long boycott by Israeli officials against her party.

Right-wing parties continue to rise in polls across Europe in the wake of continued unfettered Muslim immigration and several openly pro-Hamas and anti-Israel protests in many countries due to the Gaza War, which have in turn been championed by left-wing parties.

As left-wing institutions across the West have been turning against it, Israel is prepared to reconsider its once iron-clad policy of boycotting far-right parties.