‘Memory Saved Us’: How France Blocked the Far Right

Until the last ballot box came in from a nearby suburb, Fabrice Barusseau bit his nails: Would he or his far-right opponent be sitting in the French Parliament in Paris?

It didn’t look good. This sun-dappled district of white stone and vineyards in France’s southwest, the historical home of centrist voters, seemed to be swinging sharply right like the rest of the country. In the first round of France’s legislative elections, on June 30, the candidate for Marine Le Pen’s National Rally received over 40 percent of the votes cast. Mr. Barusseau, 54, a socialist candidate, got barely more than 28 percent.

In the second-round voting, just a week later on July 7, even toward evening, “it was extremely tense,” said Mayor Françoise Mesnard of Saint-Jean-d’Angély. “The carrots seemed to be cooked.”

But by late Sunday night, something remarkable had happened. A last-minute wave of voters rallied in what in France is called the “Republican Surge,” to vote against the far right and defend the values that many French say it threatens. It washed over the Third District of the Charente-Maritime department, just as it did elsewhere in France, lifting Mr. Barusseau to victory in the third-closest result in the country.