Marine Le Pen and the Front National in France. Between Populisms in the 2017 Elections and Beyond (original) (raw)
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The turbulent recent history of Front National under Marine Le Pen's leadership is traced. From a period in which FN was dominated by statist sovereignist policies, deep-seated ideological and strategic divisions arose whereby earlier far-right nativist authoritarian ideology eventually returned and took over the party. The in-fighting led to a muddled and erratic FN electoral campaign in 2017 and a fall in electoral appeal. Bitter rivalry between the two factions eventually split the party, with the Philippot (FN deputy leader) faction quitting in 2017. The populist anti-immigrant nationalist tone of the emergent FN may have mixed appeal for the changing character of the electorate and voter groups. The chapter also considers the viability of Marine Le Pen's continuing leadership of a far-right authoritarian FN.
The voters of the FN under Jean-Marie Le Pen and Marine Le Pen: Continuity or change?
French Politics, 2015
The French National Front (FN), currently one of the most successful radical right-wing parties at the electoral booth in Western Europe, has more than doubled its vote share from around 10 per cent in the late 2000s, or the final years of Jean-Marie Le Pen's presidency, to around 15-25 per cent in the 2010s after Marine Le Pen has taken over the leadership of the party. Aiming to understand the reasons for this increase in the party's vote and possible differences in the FN voter between Le Pen father and Le Pen daughter, we compare the individual characteristics of the FN voters, as well as the structural conditions in an individual's surrounding that might influence why somebody votes FN in 2007 and 2012. Except for the fact that the FN electorate became younger in 2012, the core characteristics of the FN voter (for example, low education, dissatisfaction with democracy in France and a working class background) have remained constant. However, what has changed in 2012 is that the FN was more successful in attracting a higher proportion of voters that belong to the socio-demographic strata traditionally, overrepresented within its electorate.
The Front National in the Twenty-First Century: From Pariah to Republican Democratic Contender?
Modern & Contemporary France: 1-20, 2014
The impressive result obtained by Marine Le Pen in the 2012 presidential elections has raised many questions regarding her ability to break the glass ceiling which many had thought unreachable for the Front National (FN). For some, this progression in the polls was a consequence of the softening of the discourse of the party and Le Pen moving away from her father's more radical stance. However, the fact that this rise came after five years of Sarkozist presidency should not be underestimated, and the context following Sarkozy's 2007 election can be seen as partly responsible for the FN reaching new heights. What this article will argue is that the new status acquired by the FN in 2012 was dramatically facilitated by the campaign by the Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP), which continued the legitimisation of the Le Pens' party rhetoric and allowed it to enter the selective category of respectable, ‘democratic’ and ‘republican’ parties. To highlight this development, this article will focus on three themes: the exaggerated state of crisis, the use of populism and the vilification of Islam through the use of neo-racist rhetoric by both the UMP and the FN. Les résultats impressionnants obtenus par Marine Le Pen lors de l'élection présidentielle de 2012 ont démontré que le Front National (FN) avait dépassé un nouveau seuil. Pour certains, cette progression était le résultat du processus de modération et du délaissement des techniques plus radicales de Jean-Marie Le Pen. Bien que la stratégie de Marine Le Pen fût un succès, les cinq années de présidence sarkoziste ont également joué un rôle prépondérant dans la poussée électorale du FN. Cet article va montrer que la nouvelle stature du FN a en fait été facilitée par la campagne de l'Union pour une Mouvement Populaire (UMP), qui a poursuivi sa légitimation du parti des Le Pen, et lui a permis de rentrer dans la cour des partis ‘démocratiques’ et ‘républicains’. Pour étudier ce développement, cet article va se concentrer sur trois thèmes de campagne déterminants: un sentiment de crise exagéré, une utilisation abusive du populisme, et la stigmatisation de l'Islam grâce à une rhétorique néo-raciste.
Back on Track: the French Far Right’s (Narrow) Win in the 2019 European Elections
2019 European Election. The EU Party Democracy and the Challenge of National Populism, 2020
Since May 2017, when its president and candidate, Marine Le Pen, has successfully made it to the second round of the French presidential election, the Front National/FN (renamed into the Rassemblement National/RN, the National Rally) has passed through a period of political difficulties and unrest to the point that some observers anticipated at least a long-lasting era of this party’s decay (Rayski 2018). Rather unexpectedly, for a series of still debatable reasons, the RN found once again a very fertile ground for developing its ideas in early 2019 and for winning in this way the first place in the European elections. How was this possible? What are the main ingredients of this RN’s unforeseen political maintain as the first party in France? In this chapter, I will try to explain the reasons for the entrenchment of the RN in the French electorate by testing one major hypothesis via a historical-contextual analysis and a focus-group research. My argument is that the RN has consolidated its position because of the twisted effect of the massive contestation wave against the now Macronist establishment called the Yellow Vests movement. More precisely, I argue that the Yellow Vest movement succeeded to provoke the spreading of a radical form of anti-Macronism in the French society (August 2018-February 2019) that was not translated in any credible and structured political platform and that the Rassemblement National was able to intelligently use in its political coming-back (February-May 2019). In order to test this hypothesis, I organized a focus group research with two major categories of citizens – the traditional FN/RN voters (who have been voting with the candidates of this party at least between 2007 and 2019) and the first time RN voters (who never voted before for the FN/RN). The structure of this chapter is the following. In the first part, I will briefly analyse the evolution of the FN under the leadership of its founding father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, and of his daughter and successor, Marine Le Pen, in order to explain the need of the latter to enforce a “normalization” strategy for the party. Then, I will try to study the context of the May 2019 European elections and especially the spectre of the Yellow Vest crisis. Finally, I will try to explain the return of the RN as a consequence of the failure of the YV movement’s transformation into a political project and I will confront my argument with the results of the FG research mentioned here-above.
Support for the Front national and Le Pen
French Politics, Culture & Society, 2000
It is always instructive to learn what others see in your book, especially in the eyes of an expert of the European extreme Right such as Jack Veugelers. He reads Ces Français qui votent FN as a study in "the social basis of party politics," relying on survey data and showing "a predilection for multivariate analysis" which he obviously does not share. Although he admits that my approach sheds light on problems such as the double nature of the FN's constituency, the decisive influence of gender, or the relation between the votes for Le Pen's party and the local presence of immigrants, 1 he expresses some doubts about "the scope and precision" as well as "the reliability" of the book's methodology. I should have gone "beyond data on the social background of voters" and given more attention to "the party's organizational activity … partisan identification and voter flows." The chapter he prefers is the last one, where "Mayer suddenly expands her framework to include the leadership, organization and the legitimacy of far Right parties" and "lends importance to both collective memories … and the way in which other parties have responded to the far Right." On the whole, because they are not "integrated within a comprehensive view of the phenomenon," my findings fail to answer the "big questions" one should ask about the FN, such as the reasons for its electoral breakthrough and endurance, its connections with the former nationalist Rights or its impact on the French party system and regime. I only partly agree with these remarks, and therefore gladly accept FPC&S's proposal to answer them. My study is not, as Veugelers seems to think, a mere empirical description of the FN's social bases; it is integrated in a theoretical frame. To be understood, the "not so simple act of voting" 2 must be placed in what the authors of The American Voter (1960) called the "funnel of causality," taking into account all the factors that shape voter choice from childhood to election day. Issues, parties and leaders matter as much in the process, if not more, than the social characteristics of the voters. And to understand the choice for a party like the Front National, that three-quarters of the French voters, including its own, place at the extreme Right on the left-right scale, one must take into account the current debate over its nature. Two conflicting hypotheses, not mentioned in Veugelers's presentation, structure the book. The first one, argumented by
"Neither Left nor Right" — Explaining the Front National's Resurgence in France
2014
How can the resurgence of the FN since 2007 be explained? Has it finally normalise? Has the mainstream right radicalised and thus, helped in such a process? How did the FN benefit from the rejection of mainstream politics? This paper will argue that this renaissance is due to endogenous and exogenous political factors that had a 'normalising-effect' on the FN's rhetoric and, in turn, placed it at the point of confluence between national and social protests, hence widening its electoral basis. To demonstrate that, we will, firstly, analyse the strategy of de-demonisation, focusing on the replacement of anti-semitism by islamophobia and the corruption of republican symbols. Secondly, the era of Sarkozism and the strategy of droitisation will be reviewed and we will be able to assess the extent to which the mainstream right has radicalised and, thus, legitimised the FN's rhetoric. Finally, we will explain the widening of Le Pen's electorate by looking at her social volte-face on political economy and the way she profited from both the economic and political crisis.