Ahead of next year’s French national elections, the far right continues to gain ground. How did a once-marginal political force become a central fixture of national political life? What social, economic, and cultural anxieties are driving its rise? And what might the next election reveal about the future of French democracy?
Join Financial Times journalist Victor Mallet, political scholar Catherine Fieschi, and historian Baptiste Roger-Lacan for an in-depth panel discussion, moderated by Curator of Cultural Programs Rachel Donadio, exploring the historical roots, evolving strategies, and future of the French far right.
About the speakers:
Victor Mallet is a journalist, editor, commentator and author with more than three decades of experience in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa with the Financial Times and Reuters. Based in Paris, he was previously the FT bureau chief in France, and now works as a senior editor on the FT world desk. His latest book is Far-Right France: Le Pen, Bardella and the Future of Europe (Hurst, 2026). His other publications include River of Life, River of Death: The Ganges and India’s Future (OUP, 2017), and The Trouble with Tigers: The Rise and Fall of South-East Asia (HarperCollins, 1998, 1999).
Baptiste Roger-Lacan is a historian and screenwriter. An ENS alumnus with a PhD in history, he researches counter-revolutionary cultures and the political right. He is a researcher at the Fondation Napoléon and teaches at Sciences Po and the Institut Catholique de Paris. He is the author of Le Roi, une autre histoire de la droite (Passés Composés, 2025) and edited the Nouvelle histoire de l’extrême droite (Seuil, 2025).
Catherine Fieschi is a leading European politics expert and global analyst whose main focus is on the rise of populist and authoritarian politics in advanced democracies. She is a longstanding adviser to progressive political leaders and campaigns across the globe. A Senior Fellow at the Robert Schuman Centre of the European University in Florence, Catherine is also a Senior Advisor to the geo-political advisory firm Macro Advisory Partners, and a member of the OECD’s Expert Group on Strategic Foresight. She is a columnist for L’Express. She is the author of Populocracy (2019) and a forthcoming book is on women and the far right. Catherine holds a PhD in Comparative Politics from McGill University in Canada and, after 30 years in the UK, now lives in Paris.
