France elections: The rise of the far right is not inevitable but it requires clever politics to keep it at bay

The political cultures of some Western European powers are clearly more susceptible to neo‑fascism than others

French far-right National Front (FN) leader Marine Le Pen arrives to deliver a speech following the announcement of results in the second round of French regional elections (AFP/Getty)

Whatever sense of relief that France, and the rest of Europe, feels at frustrating the rise of Marine Le Pen’s Front National (FN) must be tempered by the knowledge that she only has to get lucky once. The FN, the main opposition in many places, is far from the vanquished force many would wish it to be.

The principal reason for its being kept out of power was mass tactical voting by the moderate and democratic supporters of the mainstream right and left. That certainly did the trick this time, and it has had to be deployed in the past, too, such as when Ms Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, went into the presidential election run-off against the Conservative Jacques Chirac in 2002. However, this is an appeal to the electors that is, essentially, negative and frantic and unreliable. It cannot be as sustainable a bulwark as one based instead on policies, values and argument.

It has worked, and may work again, but it would be unwise for France’s leaders, or those elsewhere in Europe, to rely on it. If some of the rise of the FN is down to the shock of the terror attacks on Paris, then a similar attack (or an even more bloody one) by groups allied to Isis would yield an even greater backlash in favour of the FN and, at some point, tactical voting may not be sufficient to save the Republic from falling into the hands of extremists. It is an unthinkable, but not impossible, scenario, and one that Isis and its ugly followers might fervently wish for.

Watching all this, understandably a little nervously, is the de facto leader of Europe, Angela Merkel. If anyone has stood defiantly against the terrorists and kept the refugee crisis at the top of Europe’s agenda, it is she.

Ms Merkel has been brave in setting out modern democratic Germany’s destiny as a protector of human rights and, indeed, human lives. It has been, as she told her party, a historic test for her country and Europe. But she is also a democratic politician, and, while sticking to her principles and defending the influx of an unprecedented number of homeless Syrians, she has had to listen to the concerns voiced by her own supporters.

Unlike other leaders around Europe – and the world, if we include Donald Trump’s platform – she has used the immense political capital at her disposal to face down her most ardent critics and to challenge prejudice and bigotry. In Germany, though, she did not have to try as hard as she might have had to in François Hollande’s position. Nevertheless, more than a million refugees have come to Germany this year (compared with the mere thousands that have entered Britain or France) and that is a record of which Ms Merkel can be proud.

For the far right to triumph, as someone almost said, it is necessary only for the good to fail to take it on. In Britain we have seen the far right come and go. Ten years ago it was the BNP leader Nick Griffin’s showing in Oldham at the general election that made the headlines; today, in a by-election that might have been the far right’s to win, if it were still at its peak strength, Oldham turned to a reliable local Labour candidate to represent the town in Westminster. In Greece and Italy, too, they have subsided. There is nothing that is inevitable about the rise of the far right but the political cultures of some Western European powers are clearly more susceptible to neo‑fascism than others.