Marine Le Pen may reshape Europe – even if she loses

It has been a truism since the nineteenth century that international affairs do not decide French elections. Yet last week, only three days into the run-off campaign, Marine Le Pen gave a press conference setting out her foreign and defence policy vision.

At heart, it’s a classic Gaullist project. Even if she loses, it could seriously influence French policy, because much will depend on the size of Emmanuel Macron’s parliamentary majority and the strength of radical left and right groupings come the June legislative elections.

Le Pen’s international project draws a clear line between her nation-state based realpolitik – in the ascendant in France and elsewhere – and waning globalist liberal internationalism, so closely associated with Macron. Borrowing from De Gaulle, she grounds her diplomatic blueprint in three key principles. First, France is not a ‘middle ranking power but a great power’. The second is that she will be guided by ‘the defence of the national interest’.