Changes in discourse and resistance positions toward Europe in French political parties (1979-2009) (original) (raw)
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Perspectives on European Politics and Society, 2010
This article analyses the nature of French political parties’ attitudes towards the EU. Three main dimensions of the EU process and of its impact on the member states are focused upon: identity, representation and scope of governance. We propose for the analysis a complementary insight in to the ideological explanations of party attitudes towards the EU by focusing on two main factors of variation: the institutional position of parties and time effects. We show that French parties divide over EU issues, along the lines opposing (1) major parties to radical and outsider parties, and (2) governmental parties to non-governmental and extraparliamentary parties. Left and right do not impact the pattern of contestation of the EU issue in the French case. Parties divide upon EU issues producing in the end a peculiar pattern that differs from the more traditional patterns of party competition of France. Finally, there is diversity between the attitudes of the party central office and the party in public office.
Anti-EU Parties and the People: An Analysis of Populism in French Euromanifestos
Perspectives on European Politics and Society, 2010, Vol.11, 3, p. 292-312, 2010
Political radicalism has generated a large scholarly interest in recent years, both in Western and in Central Europe. Two series of explanations have been used to account for the success of radical parties in the scientific literature. The first one studies populism or radical politics through an analysis of electoral behaviour and/or radical groups' strategies at the national level of government. The second perspective deals with the European dimension of radical politics and researches critical attitudes regarding European integration under the generic term Euroscepticism. These two approaches to political radicalism have developed simultaneously but in an isolated way from each one other. The case studies presented in this volume aim at bridging this gap by focusing on the links between the Europeanization of political competition on the one hand, and the rise of radical parties on the other hand, in selected member states of the enlarged European Union.
The 2014 EP Election and French Opposition to the EU Since 1979: Evolution and Influence
chapter 2 in Nielsen, J. H.; Franklin, Mark N. (Eds.), The Eurosceptic 2014 European Parliament Election. Second Order or Second Rate?, Palgrave, p. 17-36, 2017
This chapter describes the diversity and evolution of oppositions to the European Union (EU) in France since the first EP election of 1979 1 , while questioning the specificity of the 2014 European Parliament (EP) election. It explains how the European issue gained saliency, showing the normalization of EU criticism in the French political space and its radicalization in 2014. The analysis reveals the weight of electoral rules in the shaping of the " eurosceptic " landscape, placing the 2014 success of the extreme-right National Front (FN) into that perspective. Assessing the effects of European integration on domestic political spaces, the chapter underlines how EP elections and the development of oppositions have contributed to reshaping the French domestic political arena while maintaining political conflicts there. Finally, in this perspective, the chapter questions the second-order model.
European Union and Political Parties: the case of the Party of European Socialists (PES)
2007
The Party of European Socialists was established according the Article 138 A of the Maastricht Treaty in order to contribute to the European unification process, having a decisive role on shaping the European conscience and becoming the political expression of the European citizens. In the prospect of the European Integration, we have to take into consideration three contradictions a) the crisis of political parties b) that national parties have to build a supra national party and c) that the parties are called to contribute to a European consensus while their tradition is based on the expression of social cleavages. The present analysis focuses a) on the so-called crisis of the political parties, b) on examining the political effects of the globalization process and c) on the role of the parties since the foundation of the European Community. Also, the present analysis argues that in order to comprehend the politics and government of European Union through political parties, we hav...
Party Euroscepticism and the Conditions for Its Success: Conceptualization and Explanation
(co-authored with Eugenio Salvati) Over the years, Eurosceptic parties have grown in both number and electoral support, together with the politicisation of European Union (EU) integration cleavage within European national polities. The term Euroscepticism denotes different aspects and degrees of opposition to the EU. For example, criticisms can point to institutions, policies, procedures, actors, as well as the integration project per se. Moreover, Euroscepticism can refer to either voters or elites. In this article, we focus on national political parties. We propose a narrow conceptualisation of Euroscepticism, by linking this concept to the concept of anti-system party. Based on several indicators, we measure the success of Euroscepticism in the member states. In our analysis, we ask why anti-system parties emerge and gain votes in some European countries, and not in others. The empirical part of the article presents a preliminary configurational analysis of necessary and sufficient conditions of Euroscepticism and related electoral successes
Political Parties and Euroscepticism
2012
This article is a comparative study on the patterns of Euroscepticism encountered among the political parties of Croatia and Serbia. Primary attention is paid to the employment of Euroscepticism from within the halls of power by the ruling parties of Croatian Democratic Union/HDZ and the Serbian Progressive Party/SNS. Secondary attention is paid to the employment of Euroscepticism by smaller parties with a populist and/or a radical right-wing orientation. This article demonstrates that whereas Euroscepticism among Croatia's political parties appears to be rather multifaceted (with a focus on domestic minority issues, gender-related themes, and economic anxieties), the Euroscepticism of Serbian political parties has become 'single-issue' with a major stress on geopolitics. Nevertheless, the governing apparatuses of Croatia and Serbia converge in their adaptive and pragmatic employment of Euroscepticism. This consists of the occasional employment of soft versions of revisionist Euroscepticism in Croatia and a gradualist Euroscepticism, which is contested by the rejectionist voices of the radical right, in Serbia. This phenomenon demarcates the tactical and situationally adaptive adjustments of HDZ and SNS from the more ideological and pervasive dominance of socially conservative agendas among ruling parties of the conservative right in the Visegrad Four states (e.g. FIDESZ and PiS).