Earlier this week, while Americans were busy analyzing our President-elect’s latest round of ill-advised tweets, France held a presidential primary, and the results could have some major impacts on the country’s 2017 presidential elections. On Sunday, candidate François Fillon beat out his two opponents, Alain Juppé and Nicolas Sarkozy, in the primary elections for France’s center-right Republican party. The victory was a major upset, considering that just last month, Fillon, France’s former prime minister, was trailing far behind Juppé and Sarkozy in the polls, making it unlikely that he would even be a competitor.

If you’re wondering why this news should matter to an American preparing for Trump’s presidency, it’s because France is poised to be the next nation to watch as Western countries are trending strongly toward populism and ultra-nationalism. These attitudes, which led to Brexit and our own President-elect Trump, have also been on the rise in France, a country which has traditionally been known for its left-wing politics.

If you’ve heard Marine Le Pen’s name being thrown around recently, it’s because she’s the leader of France’s far-right National Front, a party that has been known for certain extreme views against immigration and the European Union. Le Pen’s father, who was the party’s former head, was expelled from leadership after anti-Semitic comments.

After the Brexit decision, Le Pen wrote an op-ed for the New York Times calling the European Union a “prison of peoples” and declaring “The People’s Spring” inevitable. While the Brexit decision certainly gave Le Pen more ammunition to use in her cause, it is likely that Trump’s election will further increase the anti-establishment attitudes reflected by Le Pen and her supporters. She herself called Trump’s win a “sign of hope” and an indication that “people are taking their country back.”

Fillon’s victory on Sunday is significant because the Republican party was considered the greatest hope to prevent Le Pen’s victory in the presidential elections. While Fillon is a social conservative who has vowed to fight “Islamic totalitarianism,” he is still considered to be preferable to the left over Le Pen, whose plans to appeal to the working class and those fed up with the “establishment” and “elites” mirror the familiar rhetoric of the Trump campaign. It is unlikely that the left will have any representation of its own in next year’s race, as the low popularity of current Socialist President François Hollande indicates that the party will be unable to compete. Hollande announced today that he would not be seeking re-election, but polls indicate that any alternative candidate chosen by the Socialist Party will likely not be able to challenge Fillon and Le Pen.

If Le Pen is victorious in 2017’s elections, it could spell trouble for the future of the European Union and would likely be a discouraging outlook for liberal politics all over the globe. As the “Trump effect” sends ripples that will undoubtedly shake up the world order, the French election is one to watch.

Mariam Jaffery

Mariam was an Executive Assistant at Law Street Media and a native of Northern Virginia. She has a B.A. in International Affairs with a minor in Business Administration from George Washington University. Contact Mariam at mjaffery@lawstreetmedia.com.

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President-elect Donald Trump’s victory last week has injected populist, anti-establishment figures in France with newfound confidence as they prepare for their presidential election next spring. With primary elections for top far-right candidates starting this Saturday, some have used Trump’s win as an example of what France can also achieve.

“Mr. Trump wants to defend American interests? Fine, I want to defend French interests and those of Europe. What Americans allow themselves, why should we refuse that for France?” former President Nicolas Sarkozy said at a rally in Nice on Tuesday.

Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front party, also expressed hope at a recent rally: “My election at the presidency has been called impossible for months now, it is up to the people to make it possible,” she said.

The West, with Brexit and the Trump movement as concrete examples, is in the midst of of an anti-immigration, anti-establishment swing. Mass migration and globalization are stirring populist forces, and new political movements are arising to ride their coattails. But other candidates think the movement Trump helped stoke will not reach France.

“I don’t want to pit one part of France against another, the elites against the people … It’s a dangerous political game,” Alain Juppe, a center-right candidate and ex-prime minister said at a Paris rally on Monday. Polls have Juppe ahead of Sarkozy in their primary face-off which begins this Saturday. Juppe is the mayor of Bordeaux.

France’s election will have two rounds: one in April and another in May, when the two two candidates to emerge from the first round will go head-to-head. France’s main pollsters predict Le Pen, a 48-year-old former lawyer, will make it to the second round, but lose in a landslide to whoever the center-right candidate will be, even with the boost Trump’s win provided her.

Whether she wins or not, Le Pen’s message certainly shares common themes with other right-wing parties in Europe. In an interview with CNN on Tuesday, Le Pen shared her vision for the “comeback of France” her leadership would lead to:

“The nations are not triggering the war; it is ultra-liberalism, the disappearance of borders, the great migration of people … according to the ambitions of the multinationals that creates war. There have never been as many conflicts as there are today,” she said.

Le Pen has also called the European Union a “quasi-totalitarian political system,” promising a referendum on France’s membership–a “Frexit”–should she win the presidency. France’s current President Francois Hollande is deeply unpopular, but has not explicitly said he won’t run for another term.

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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