National Front On French Politics Essay, Research Paper
Over the last fifteen years the Front National in France has risen from being an
obscure and insignificant actor to one of the more visible and most discussed parties in
French politics. The Front, led by Jean-Marie Le Pen, has managed to attract a sizable
proportion of the electorate in nearly every election at every level of government over this
time period. The support the FN has garnered can be attributed to the populist themes it
addresses in its policy platform – law and order, immigration and unemployment. This
essay examines the rapid ascent of Le Pen and his party, and the circumstances that made
the rise feasible. It also analyses the FN’s policies and their subsequent effects on French
politics and society. Finally, the Front National’s electorate and future in French politics
is investigated.
The Rise of Le Pen and the FN
Jean-Marie Le Pen, who lost his left eye in a political brawl,1 began his political career
long before the conception of the FN. As a lieutenant to Pierre Poujade, the leader of the
Poujadist movement,2 Le Pen became a member of the National Assembly from 1956 to
1958. During this time he acquired many of the values and ideals on which he later used
to formulate the Front’s platform. After his stint in the National Assembly, Le Pen
traveled to then colonized Algeria and saw active duty as a paratrooper officer. The years
leading up to the naming of Le Pen as leader of the FN were comparatively calm to the
years he would spend with the Front.
The Front National’s creation in 1972 with Le Pen at the helm, might be described
as anything but auspicious. During the first decade of its existence, it remained at best a
fringe party with a radical and extreme right wing slant. In the Presidential election of
1974, which was won by the moderate right’s Valery Giscard d’Estaing over the Socialist
Francois Mitterand, Le Pen managed to obtain only 0.75 per cent of the vote. In fact
seven years later he failed to procure the five-hundred elected sponsors needed to run in
the French election.3 The FN survived these disappointments and were soon revived by an
unexpected resurgence of the extreme right only two years later.
A reversal of fortunes occurred for the Front in isolated municipal and National
Assembly by-elections in 1983, where they amassed close to 11 per cent of the vote. The
following year in June, they built upon their success by compiling a surprising 11 per cent
of the national vote in elections to the European Parliament, enabling them to send 10
delegates to Strasbourg.4 Despite this success many observers, such as Subrata Mitra,
maintained that the success of the Front would be short-lived and fade as suddenly as they
had originated,
Movements that rise almost out of nowhere and shoot into political prominence within a
short span of time, basing their appeal on a relatively restricted platform and drawing
support from across established political and sociological cleavages are sometimes
referred to as single-issue movements… Characteristically, the single-issue movement
galvanizes support from different political camps on the basis of a single, all-
encompassing issue, and, predictably, disappears once the issue has been articulated and
aggregated into the political agenda.5
The meteoric rise of the Front National, coupled with the narrow platform of the party,
appeared to make it vulnerable to the changing focus of French Politics. In the 1986
legislative elections the FN managed to secure 10 per cent of the vote and elected 35
deputies under a system of proportional representation. Why didn’t the FN fade and
vanish like the Poujadists of the 1950s or other ’single-issue’ movements?
The political and economic instability of the 1970s created a much more
hospitable climate for the FN, than the Poujadist movement of the 1950s. A broad trend
of voter instability on both the left and the right characterized the late 1970s. In an article
by Martin Schain, Suzanne Berger maintains that the established parties failed to recognize
and acknowledge the changing political grievances, nor the shifting values and interests of
its citizenry. Also, there was a “sense of economic crisis encouraged by government
policy and rising unemployment.”6 A year or so after the Socialists gained power in 1981,
people were increasingly dissatisfied and lacked confidence in the leftist policies, yet they
had little faith in the right as an alternative. It is within this political climate that the FN’s
policies became attractive to the disgruntled population. The FN’s stance offered an outlet
for voters frustrations over the state of the economy and the increase in crime and
violence. The people had reason to hope that perhaps now their concerns would be
addressed.
Effects of Policy
It’s no secret that Le Pen and the Front are dangerously nationalistic, typified by extreme
statements such as the following made by Le Pen, “Two million unemployed, that’s two
million immigrants we don’t want.”7 Inflammatory declarations of this sort are not only
provocative and shameful, But they also have explosive consequences in society. They
incite violence and hate and create fear in particular segments of the population.
Moreover, they reflect a decrease in the social fabric of a nation and a lack of
imagination amongst its leaders for developing solutions with constructive consequences
r
course the situation in present day France is different from those which infected Germany
during the interwar period. Nonetheless, the potential for unnecessary violence is genuine
and arguably, inevitable.
The success Le Pen had in capturing a significant aggregate of the vote assisted in
the legitimization of the ‘immigrant issue’, and placed it at the forefront of the political
agenda as the established parties took aim on the FN’s supporters.8 The consent, or
acknowledgment, by the established parties that immigrants represented “a source of
unemployment and urban tension, and a drain on the national purse,”9 as the leader of the
RPR Jacques Chirac stated in an interview, led to an increase in the severity and the
frequency of racist conduct. Had the major parties denounced Le Pen and the Front
National as racists that were a threat to democracy and an embarrassment to the French
people rather than passively allow them to creep their way onto the political stage, perhaps
people would look elsewhere for explanations to the economic malaise. Who can fault
people for taking the easy way out by blaming immigrants for their problems when none of
their leaders were able to articulate a more reasonable way of thinking.
The increase in racist anger culminated on the 10th of May in 1990 with the
desecration of a Jewish cemetery at Carpentras. The reason this particular incidence of
anti-Semitic activity stood out from others was the manner in which the cemetery was
desecrated. A recently buried body was excavated and abused and 30 other graves were
tampered with.10 The connection between the events at Carpentras and the FN is very
convincing when the political context surrounding them is taken into consideration. Three
events prior to the 10th of May are worthy of examination. First, opinion polls prior to
the incident showed an increase in popularity for the Front National and Le Pen. Second,
the 8th of May was the anniversary of the end of the second world war which was marked
by an anti-Semitic television program on Nazi Germany, and lastly, on the 9th of May Le
Pen confirmed his anti-Jewish stance in a speech on the same television station.11 The
media exposure that accompanied the episode, was followed by a dramatic increase in
anti-Jewish acts that preceded it. It is important to note that persons of the Jewish faith
are not the only one’s to whom racist acts are directed. North Africans, Black Africans,
Asians and Spanish are also frequently perceived to be too numerous in France by those
who support the far right.12 This leads to the obvious question of from where does the
Front generate support for its policies?
The Electorate
The FN receives a large amount of votes from those that used to support the Communist
party. “The national Front has appealed primarily to the groups most marginalised by the
modernization of French society along with those most affected by its economic crisis.”13
The 1988 Presidential elections showed that Le Pen did well in the industrial suburbs
around Paris, which used to support the PCF. Unemployment in that region had
skyrocketed, and voting for the extreme right was viewed as a means to protest the
dissatisfaction over the established parties’ unsuccessful efforts to deal with the problem
effectively.14 In that election, in which the Front amassed four and a half million votes for
14.5 per cent of the electorate, they also received much support from farmers,
shopkeepers, small business, salaried workers and the young. It is not surprising that the
regions where the Front was most successful were areas with high concentrations of
immigrants and minorities, and as already mentioned, the highest unemployment rates.15
The FN’s electorate in the 1995 presidential elections shared many of the same
characteristics that were present in 1988. Again Le Pen secured four and a half million
voters for 15 per cent of the vote, and again they came from the same groups in society.
Future?
Although the Front National is managing to attract a significant segment of the
electorate, one has to question its future. Due to the reversion to a two-ballot majority
electoral system, it is unlikely that the Front will ever manage to elect any deputies to the
National Assembly as they did in 1986. For the same reason, it is unlikely that they will
ever elect a president. Another problem the FN will have to overcome in the future is its
ability to continue to retain around 15 per cent of the vote. Although they do have
supporters who can be described core xenophobes, a large part of the votes they received
in the presidential and legislative elections were protest votes. By opting for Le Pen on
the first ballot, voters were able express their dissatisfaction while at the same time feel
safe that their safe vote would not affect the outcome.16
Although the Front will not be able to have a direct influence on legislation, their
voice will continue to be heard at least indirectly through the moderate right, who are
more receptive to them. If the FN is to survive into the foreseeable future it will have to
broaden its policies and increase its political base in order to become a party for the
improvement of French society as a whole. So long as they remain a conduit for radical
disgruntlement they will remain a dangerous presence lingering on the fringes of French
politics.