Full text of DOI:10.1093/pa/53.3.443

France: The Front National from
Crossroads to Crossroads?
BY PAUL HAINSWORTH AND PAUL MITCHELL
Without doubt, the French Front National (FN) has been one of the
key political parties in the late twentieth/early twenty-first century
wave of extreme right-wing successes across western Europe. In fact,
following its initial electoral breakthrough in 1983–84, it served as a
beacon of hope for other like-minded movements. Born in 1972,
it emerged from obscurity in the 1970s to play a prominent role
in French (and European) politics and society in the 1980s and
1990s. For a sustained period, it has been able to occupy centre-stage
with its political ideas and win millions of votes from the electorate.
This has enabled it to boast a (varying) presence at national, Euro-
pean, local and regional levels: 35 members of the National
Assembly—elected by proportional representation (1986–88); up to
11 Members of the European Parliament; around 2000 local and
around 250 regional councillors in the late 1990s; and, not least,
14 to 15% (and 4 to 4.5 million votes) for its leader, Jean-Marie
Le Pen, in the 1988 and 1995 French presidential elections. The
late 1990s, moreover, witnessed the party reaching new heights and,
with the divisions apparent among (mainstream) right-wing rivals, it
could look forward to the millennium with anticipation of further
success.
However, precisely at this point, the Front National experienced the
most serious challenge to its internal unity and future as a significant
force in French politics. A schism, centred around the rivalry between
Le Pen and his number two, Bruno Me´gret, has led to the creation of a
separate, breakaway movement, presided over by the latter. As the
French extreme right conjugates this new reality, and the Haider
phenomenon in Austria and developments in other countries have
turned the spotlight on this political family elsewhere, it is appropriate
to examine the past, present and future of the Front. To explain its
nature and appeal, we discuss its policies and support. It is a movement
with a declared vocation to govern and thus we take interim stock of
its record in office, at local level, after its highly publicised successes at
municipal elections in 1995 and 1997. Its municipal profile, unsurpris-
ingly, has been affected by the split within the movement, the nature of
which we examine. We then assess its impact upon French politics and
society.
Ą Hansard Society for Parliamentary Government 2000
Parliamentary Affairs (2000), 53, 443–456

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Policy profile
The Front’s policies have appealed to a sizeable proportion of the
French electorate. Over time, too, the party has broadened its policy
profile, in part to try to counter the suggestion that it is a single-issue
(immigration) movement, but also in order to pose as a credible
candidate for government. Furthermore, as it moved from splinter or
small group status to mass political party, it felt the need to fine-tune
its programme appropriately. The passage of time and circumstances—
notably the evolution from the Cold War to the new (post-communist)
world order—also required it to change its emphasis. Whilst anti-
communism was a major, motivating philosophy in the party’s earlier
years (roughly from the early 1970s to the mid-1980s), immigration
and (national) identity themes became more prominent in the 1980s
and anti-globalisation themes in the 1990s.
As argued elsewhere,1 anti-communism was a strong party line—but
not a vote-winner—as long as communism remained prevalent in
Europe, at home and abroad. The ‘fall of the wall’ and the protracted
decline of the French Communist Party made this policy increasingly
redundant. By this time, anyway, immigration, insecurity and unem-
ployment had emerged as more attractive policy issues for the party in
the 1980s. Although immigration policy should certainly not be seen as
the only mobilising issue, it served as an ‘omnibus issue’, a matrix
through which most other issues could be channelled: unemployment,
education, law and order, the economy, culture, social expenditure,
housing policy and so on. As has been suggested: ‘Le Pen has skilfully
picked up and manipulated the issue of immigration, using it as a focus
for the Front’s appeal. The immigrant has been resurrected as the
traditional scapegoat for all France’s ills.’2
The Front’s somewhat crude initial scapegoating of immigrants was
refined in the mid-1980s, as it tried to soften its image and broaden its
electoral base. The elaboration of its discourse on immigration was
facilitated by the rallying of certain right-wing and New Right forces to
the party, as it became apparent that the ascendant Front offered
prospects for the promotion of ideas and personalities. Spearheaded by
Me´gret and other key ideologues, these elements were in the vanguard
of disaffection against Le Pen at the time of the split with him in the
late 1990s (see below). Up until this point, though, they had provided
the party with one of its most useful policy concepts: ‘the national
preference’. Firmly embedded in the Me´gret-inspired and extensive
1993 party programme,3 this meant supporting French and European
Union nationals primarily (as opposed to immigrants and other foreign-
ers) in matters of unemployment, housing or other state benefits. Other
criteria (such as social need or payment of taxes) would be considered
secondary when it came, for instance, to allocating social security
benefits or drawing up redundancy lists.

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445
Since the concept of national preference was central to the Front’s
policy profile, it attracted much attention—a fair deal of support on
the one hand and considerable condemnation on the other. As regards
the latter, political commentators construed the concept as socially
exclusive, a form of apartheid, and racist in intent. For Le Pen, who
aspires to ground the concept in a new French constitution and repub-
lic, the concept serves to underwrite the party’s view of the nation.
The nation and national identity are supreme values. The nation,
moreover, is a ‘rooted’, historic, traditional, ethnically-inspired entity
that can easily be undermined by (allegedly) alien values, groups, cul-
ture and influences. Thus, ‘outsiders’ who are unwilling, unable or
ineligible to assimilate are a threat to the nation. In practice, this
means Third World immigrants, but also anti-national influences such
as Islam (France’s second most practised religion), European integra-
tion and globalisation.
Globalisation emerged in the 1990s as the leadership’s particular
target. The 1993 programme, in fact, was steeped in anti-globalist
sentiment. Globalisation was portrayed by the party as the most seri-
ous threat to French national identity, destroying nations and cultures,
differences and frontiers. The Front argued that, since peoples were
different, they should be treated differently. Globalisation, multi-cul-
turalism, ‘Brussels’ and other trans- or supra-national forces eroded
the integrity of nations. Behind this discourse of difference, though,
critics have discerned a de facto culturally differentialist neo-racism,
which (for the most part) shies away from espousing crude biological
expositions of race but is, nonetheless, based on hierarchies and privi-
leges. It has been said that the party’s concern with restoring national
identity ‘can be presented in part as an extension of rootedness inher-
ited from Barre`s . . . but it is fused with the discourse of cultural
identity and difference propagated by the New Right in place of
older, less publicly acceptable discourses of pseudo-scientific racial
inequality’.4
It is around questions such as these that the party has both gained
support and polarised opinion. Indeed, the opinion polls have consis-
tently shown that the Front’s discourse leaves relatively few respondents
undecided: most of those polled are either for or against the party and
its policies. On questions such as ‘Do you think the FN is a danger to
democracy?’ ‘Yes’ response is invariably and overwhelmingly greater
than ‘No’. In fact, over recent years, attitudes have hardened: a hard
core of Front-friendly say ‘No’, but an ever-increasing majority say
‘Yes’. Overall, the more that people have seen of the party, the more
they have reacted negatively against it.5
The Front’s economic policy and the espousal of protectionism in the
1990s also attracted much attention. In the late 1970s and the 1980s,
the party had boasted to be neo-liberal, even ‘Reaganite’, in its econom-
ics. In reality, the Front was never really an out-and-out supporter of

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the market, not least because prioritising ‘the nation’ meant that this
latter value took pride of place in the party’s discourse. Big business,
too, was perceived by the party as suspect, and anti-national in practice.
‘Popular’ or family modes of capitalism were favoured in preference,
since these appealed more to the party’s clientele. Moreover, they fitted
in with the overall thrust of its discourse, including its support for ‘the
little man’ and for traditional values such as the ‘French’ family.
An examination of the Front’s economic thinking over the years
actually reveals an elastic ideological practice, with emphasis on eco-
nomic liberalism and/or protectionism whenever it suited the party
politically. The economic protectionist turn of the 1990s, for instance,
served to underwrite its adoption of a so-called ‘third way’ politics.
This particular ideological stance (anti-communist and anti-global cap-
italist), with its echoes of pre- and postwar fascism, was partly an
attempt to come to terms with its political ostracism at national party
level. In part, it was also a strategy to cement a disparate electorate.
Ultimately, we can agree that while there is a greater amount of
protectionist policy content in the economic policy in the 1990s,
protectionism, as such, is not new to it; nor have neo-liberal policies
disappeared from its economic agenda: ‘Such fluidity of content is
representative of the conceptual vagueness with which the FN aims to
spread its ideological net.’6
All in all, the Front’s attempts to win support for its policies have not
been met with universal approval. Even before the schism within the
party, the electorate did not see it as having a credible policy pro-
gramme. Moreover, only 10 to 14% of the electorate in 1997—and
just one-third of the party’s own supporters—saw it as ‘a party of
government’.7 Nevertheless, these reservations had not prevented a large
number of electors from voting for the party.
Voters
Much has been written about the voters of the Front. Indeed, it has
been suggested that no party’s electorate in France has had such
attention devoted to it.8 Studies show that its electors cannot be
stereotyped: they have different reasons for voting and their sociological
profile has changed over the years of success. Policies, personality,
political circumstances and socio-economic changes are all relevant
factors. From the outset, though, it must be recalled that the electoral
breakthrough of the party owed much to the failings of and popular
disillusionment with other (mainstream) political parties, as well as to
the willingness of some right-wing politicians in effect to legitimise the
Front by alliances or agreements at local and regional levels and/or by
echoing its policy emphases. To a large extent, there is undoubtedly a
protest factor at work behind its success. A vote for it can be seen as a
vote against immigration and elites, against alleged (or perceived)
decline and decadence. However, to reduce it to this formula is too

Extreme Right in France
447
simple. Commentators, have pointed rightly to a rational, positive
choice demonstrated by voters: they identify strongly with policies
rather than (or more so than) against other rival parties.9
Who exactly votes for the Front? It varies from election to election.
Nevertheless, there are certain patterns and biases in the sociological
profile of the party’s electorate. Some cohorts are more likely than
others to support it. Up until the late 1990s split within the party, too,
it was known to have comparatively the most loyal electorate—a
process referred to by political commentators as the ‘fide´lisation’ of the
vote. The schism resulted in Le Pen’s party losing a certain part of its
electorate to Me´gret’s breakaway however.
There are some similarities between the characteristics of the Front’s
electorate and those of other far-right parties in western Europe. The
tendency to recruit relatively younger, more ‘popular’ (or working-
class) and least (formally) educated voters is a common trait. Arguably,
though, the most defining characteristic of the voter is gender: consider-
ably more men than women opt for the party—and again there are
extreme right parallels elsewhere.10 Various explanations have been
given. For instance, the party exhibits a somewhat ‘traditional’ view of
women’s roles, with the emphasis on child-rearing and family duties.
Women are also noticeably and heavily underrepresented in its highest
echelons. Again, regular religious practice (Catholicism) is seen to be
more prevalent among females, and there is evidence to suggest that
religious practitioners are less likely to support the Front than other
parties—possibly alienated by its perceived lack of pluralistic tolerance
and influenced by the French episcopacy’s warnings against supporting
parties that articulate exclusionist, xenophobic or racist themes.
A second defining factor is age: the Front draws disproportionately
from the 18–39 range, doing particularly well amongst young, first-
time and hitherto abstentionist voters. Where formal education and
skills experience are limited, unemployment levels are high and immi-
grants can be pointed to as the alleged reason for unemployment in
France, then the party stands to poll especially well. Areas of high
immigration or ethnic minority presence (such as Dreux—scene of the
1983 breakthrough) are susceptible to its appeal. However, so too are
other areas where an increase in the local immigrant population is
feared as much as it is genuinely experienced. Certainly, compared to
rivals on the right of politics, it is here that it has done markedly better
in winning support. Post-election studies also show it to be a much
more successful recruiter of the ‘popular’ vote, such as in the 1995
presidential election, when Le Pen single-handedly outstripped the
collective vote of his two main right-wing rivals (Jacques Chirac and
Edouard Balladur) within this category. It is the Front’s ability to
perform well here—campaigning on key issues of immigration, unem-
ployment and security—that has given the mainstream right much
cause for concern, not least since these electors are less likely to support

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the right’s candidates against the left’s in the decisive second ballot of
parliamentary and presidential elections.
In contrast to the above pattern, both the Front and the mainstream
right have been able to ‘fish’ on more even terms for votes amongst
lower middle-class employees. The party’s success in winning blue- and
white-collar (petit-bourgeois) workers has led some commentators to
reflect upon the potential party problems of trying to please groups
whose interests are likely to conflict at times. The different values and
concerns—on issues such as social conflict, religion and moral
questions—of the party’s ‘two electorates’ have been highlighted. One
informed writer points to the problems faced in trying to maintain its
support around nation, immigration and ‘neither left nor right’ poli-
tics.11 Another suggests that the party has abandoned its original self-
location as a right-wing party in order to accommodate the dual
electorate, and this has involved resorting to the ‘neither right nor left’
strategy since the early 1990s.12 Yet another sums up the consequences
of the growing proletarianisation of the party’s vote in the 1990s:
‘Straining to appeal to its growing popular constituency while retaining
its lower middle-class base, the FN is caught between its traditional
economic liberalism and a dirigiste agenda, embracing objectives that
are not easily reconciled.’13
The split within the Front, unsurprisingly, prompted a scramble for
votes and influence on the extreme right in France. The early indications
would suggest that Le Pen is still capable of retaining an appreciable
‘popular’ vote, but that Me´gret is able to win sections of the petit-
bourgeois electorate which traditionally supported the party. However,
both elements are susceptible to support a national-minded, right-wing,
eurosceptic political formation outside the extreme right, and this is
precisely what happened in the 1999 European elections, as the Pasqua-
de Villiers alliance was able to draw support from the right and the
extreme right.
The Front in local government
Despite the Front’s considerable electoral success before 1995, the party
had never participated in national coalition government, due to the
refusal of the leadership of the mainstream right RPR and UDF to
sanction any deals with it. Nor had it controlled a large town, a
departmental or a regional council. Hence the 1995 municipal elections
were significant for its capture of three large towns: Orange, Marignane
and Toulon. There would have been another victory to celebrate, in
Nice, had the new non-aligned mayor, Jacques Peyrat and his support-
ers not left the party in September 1994, following differences with Le
Pen.
These three triumphs were followed, in February 1997, by the success
of Cathe´rine Me´gret in Vitrolles. This was the most significant victory
of the four, as the wife of the then de facto deputy leader of the Front

Extreme Right in France
449
beat the incumbent Socialist mayor in a straight one-to-one contest.
The other FN mayors had won in three-way contests, with the ‘repub-
lican front’ against them being divided between the left and mainstream
right. The result was not lost on the wider party membership: the
message from Vitrolles was that under Bruno Me´gret’s guidance, it
could win over 50% of the vote. It was no coincidence that these four
triumphs were in Provence-Alpes-Coˆte d’Azur: towns in a region with
high levels of North African (largely Muslim) immigrants, crime and
unemployment. For the Front, the three aspects are related and a
breeding ground for promising quick-fix solutions, centring around its
core thesis of national preference which had a prominent position in
the manifestos of the mayoral candidates.
The drawback for the Front, though, is that—pending changes to
French law (something beyond the remit of a local mayor)—national
preference is illegal (later confirmed when a court prohibited Vitrolles
from offering a 5000 franc payment for every newborn child with at
least one French parent). The illegality of national preference did not
stop Jean-Marie Le Pen from urging the newly-elected mayors to stick
with their electoral promises: ‘We are respectful of the law, but we will
not submit to an unjust law.’14 The Toulon mayor, however, struck a
more realistic note: ‘I will respect French law: the towns of France are
not states within the State. They are tributaries of the common law’ (Le
Figaro, 23.6.95). The Front mayors turned to using their power over
local administration, by-laws and budgets to send out the message that
immigrants were not welcome in their towns. One way was to increase
police funding to underwrite belief in a link between crime and immi-
gration. The mayors also urged clampdowns on begging and drinking
in public places, while vagrants were subjected to health checks. One
mayor demanded that schools should not provide Kosher or Halal
meals to save money. He subsidised an ex-servicemen’s group but not a
‘meals on wheels’ service as that did not discriminate between French
and non-French customers. Although the Front preferred to hide behind
‘budgetary cuts’ to justify decisions, the mask did occasionally slip, as
when one mayor boasted that not a single request for a temporary visa
had been dealt with by his office. National preference also extended to
cultural policy. The Front rejects modernist or avant-garde artistic and
theatrical bodies, believing them to be full of socialists, intellectuals and
homosexuals. It was, therefore, no surprise when mayors got into a
series of high profile spats with local cultural bodies. Public libraries
also felt the wrath of the Front, with disproportionate purchase of
right-wing publications, disguised by one mayor as pluralism, but also
(not quite the same thing) as a means of ensuring that the town’s
political balance was reflected in the library’s books and magazines.
The Front may have yet to win seats in national government but, as
can be seen following the party’s experiments in Vitrolles, Marignane,
Toulon and Orange, its agenda for the whole of France now seems

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clearer. It has encouraged the police to adopt a more authoritarian
approach towards immigration and vagrancy and has purged municipal
authorities of those who have failed to toe the party’s line. Moreover,
it has used its power to disseminate the message that non-white, non-
Christian and non-French/European residents are not welcome in the
towns which the party controls. Significantly (and unfortunately for it),
the party’s control of the four towns has been devastated by its internal
schism.
The Front implodes
On the evening of the March 1998 regional election, having received
over 15% of the vote for the third consecutive national election, the
Front appeared to have cemented its place in the French political
spectrum. Yet within a year, it had split into two mutually antagonistic
parties, one led by Jean-Marie Le Pen, the other by Bruno Me´gret. The
schism was not over policy but about strategy, rivalry and ambition.
Le Pen, the perennial party leader, was increasingly seen by the
younger, more ambitious generation of members as an impediment to
progress. Under his leadership, the party had seemingly reached a
plateau of 15%, and one avenue that the ‘me´gre´tistes’ wanted to explore
was the possibility of forging alliances or deals with the RPR-UDF,
based around common, minimalist manifesto commitments, shorn of a
commitment to the national preference principle. The rationale of this
strategy was that it would destroy the ‘republican front’ against the
Front. It would also increase the party’s elected representation across
the country, including in the National Assembly and would encourage
RPR-UDF voters to trust it. This approach was thrown into sharper
relief by the result of the 1997 election, as the failure of the RPR-UDF
and the Front to form an electoral pact facilitated the combined left’s
victory.15 The ‘le´pe´nistes’ rejected this strategy. They did not oppose
pacts as such, but thought Me´gret’s approach would sell the party
short, effectively diluting its commitment to national preference. Pro-
moting his stance, Le Pen emphasised that ‘one does not ally oneself
with forces en de´composition: one waits to pick up the pieces’.16
To Le Pen’s alarm, Me´gret and his strategy were gaining real currency
within the Front. In contrast to the loud and sometimes bullish Le Pen,
Me´gret is a calm, calculating politician who, inspired by the success of
Gianfranco Fini in taking the National Alliance into power in Italy in
the mid-1990s, is serious about emulating his Italian counterpart.
Further confirmation of Me´gret’s rise came at the Front’s Strasbourg
congress in 1997 (just a month after his masterminding of the victory
in Vitrolles). With 3,758 votes, he topped the poll in elections to the
party’s central committee, with a ‘me´gre´tiste’ in second place and a
‘lepe´niste’, with 3,398 votes, coming third.
Le Pen’s position as party president was not helped by three disas-
trous errors that he made during and just after the 1997 general

Extreme Right in France
451
election. Between ballots, he mused aloud that he would prefer a left-
wing government to be elected, in the hope of forcing President Jacques
Chirac to resign. This infuriated many party members. Then, alone
amongst national party leaders, he decided not to stand as a candidate:
a decision which he somewhat unconvincingly justified by saying that
he was preparing himself for the regional council elections and for a
presidential election should Chirac resign. In reality, he was fearful of
damage to his leadership of the Front should he lose while Me´gret won
a seat in the National Assembly. Finally, whilst campaigning he
assaulted a woman Socialist candidate, resulting in a court disqualifying
him from holding all public elected offices for one year. The last error
was the most significant as Le Pen reacted by announcing that his wife
Jany should take his place at the head of the list for the 1999 European
elections. This outraged the ‘me´gre´tistes’ who believed that their man—
as second in command—should lead the list.
This cocktail of strategy, rivalry and ambition tested the party’s
cohesion to breaking point. Division within the Front became all the
more evident after the 1998 regional election. The electoral arithmetic
meant that if the RPR-UDF wanted to retain control of a dozen ‘hung’
regional councils, the candidates for their presidencies would have
to accept the deciding votes of Front councillors, thus defying the
national leadership of the RPR and UDF. Seeking to exploit the situ-
ation, Me´gret (but not Le Pen) offered olive branches that made no
mention of national preference. Three members of the UDF accepted
the bait, were duly elected presidents of their regions and then
promptly expelled from their party. Me´gret’s deal infuriated Le Pen.
At the very least, Le Pen had wanted a deal whereby the Front would
vote for RPR-UDF candidates in return for the mainstream right help-
ing to make him president of Provence-Alpes-Coˆte d’Azur regional
council.
Party unity could not hold, and when a proposed list of candidates
for the June 1999 European election, packed top-heavy with ‘lepe´nistes’,
was leaked to the press in December 1998, the ‘me´gre´tistes’ interpreted
this as a calculated snub. Days later, after a national council meeting
which degenerated into a shouting match, Le Pen expelled Me´gret and
his key supporters. The ‘me´gre´tistes’ refused to accept the legitimacy of
their expulsion and claimed sufficient support from members for an
extraordinary party congress to decide who should lead the party. An
interim court decision had earlier declared that both factions had the
right to call themselves the Front National. At their extraordinary
congress, the ‘me´gre´tistes’ elected Me´gret head of the Front National-
Mouvement National and condescendingly elected Le Pen as honorary
president. Le Pen refused to recognise the congress and restyled his
party the Front National pour l’Unite´ Franc¸aise. A court ruling in May
1999 declared that Me´gret’s congress was legally invalid and gave sole
use of the party name, logo and state funding to the ‘lepe´nistes’. Me´gret

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was obliged to change his party’s name to Mouvement National, though
challenging the ruling.
The Front was split from top to bottom. Le Pen retained the party’s
traditional support: the Alge´rie Franc¸aise diehards, the fundamentalist
Catholics and the working-class, corporatist-minded, ‘solidaristes’.
Me´gret won to his cause the radical right-wing intellectuals (the ‘horlo-
gistes’) and the pagan neo-fascists. The split, therefore, cannot simply
be characterised as between lepe´nistes and me´gre´tistes, between extrem-
ists and moderates: Me´gret’s camp, with its New Right and revolution-
ary intellectual neo-fascists, could hardly be described as moderate. It
also ran deep in terms of party members and officials, with Me´gret
winning the majority of the departmental and regional secretaries, half
the regional councillors, two of the four local mayors, half the depart-
mental secretaries of the party’s youth wing and the majority of
members in its university organisation, as well as its internal security
service. Even Le Pen’s daughters were in rival camps.
The feud between the two led the French public to declare a plague
on both their houses: the 1999 European elections saw the Front receive
just over 5% of the vote and 5 MEPs (ongoing appeals permitted Le
Pen to be elected, but the courts have ruled that he must serve his
disqualification), with the Mouvement National managing just over
3%. As the latter failed to clear the 5% barrier, it not only failed to get
any seats but also failed to qualify for state refunding of electoral
expenses. Since the split, Me´gret has distanced the Mouvement National
from the Front. He has declared that his party is situated between the
Front and the right-wing eurosceptic and nationalist Rassemblement
Pour la France (RPF), headed by Charles Pasqua and Philippe de
Villiers, and that its goal is ‘to conquer the totality of the national and
republican electorate . . . whilst respecting the institutions of our
country and breaking with an extreme right bent on being marginalised’
(Libe´ration, 16.9.99). His new-found commitment to the republic is
reflected in a change of party name to the Mouvement National
Re´publicain.
Impact
The most immediate impact of the Front’s success has been the
increased level of fear amongst the immigrant, Jewish and Muslim
communities. In an attempt to counter this, elements within civil society
have been radicalised, with the 1980s and 1990s seeing an explosion in
the number of (largely critical) publications, newspaper reports, confer-
ences, television programmes and internet sites on the party. The period
has also seen a mushrooming in the number of national and local
organisations dedicated to spreading an anti-Front, pro-interracial tol-
erance message.
The Front’s emergence has had a mobilising effect on the mainstream
in France, with parties across the political spectrum nervously guarding

Extreme Right in France
453
their votes in the face of the rising tide in its support and often
themselves adopting language and policies more closely associated with
the extreme right. The curious situation has thus risen with mainstream
politicians condemning the Front in public but adopting policies that
would not look entirely out of place in its manifestos. This can be seen
by the actions of Chirac’s 1986–88 government, which tightened
immigration controls, restored random identity card checks and even
chartered a plane to deport 101 Malian refugees. (Chirac also referred
infamously to the ‘noise and smell’ associated with immigrants.) Simi-
larly, Balladur’s 1993–95 government repealed the ‘droit du sol’, i.e.
French citizenship for those born in France of non-French parents,
tightened naturalisation and family reunion laws, and gave the police
extra stop-and-search powers. Despite the Jospin government’s rein-
statement of the ‘droit du sol’, the French left is not altogether blameless
in these matters. Edith Cresson, the short-lived Socialist Prime Minister
of the early 1990s, boasted that her government would also charter
planes to deport illegal immigrants and even enacted a Front policy of
setting up detention centres for asylum seekers. Perhaps aghast at the
growing support the Front was receiving from its traditional working-
class heartlands, the Communist Party has also been prepared to use
language more associated with the extreme right. In the early 1990s, it
published Immigration: The View of the Communists, which con-
demned racism and xenophobia, yet recognised problems with immigra-
tion and the family reunification programme. Referring to the problems
of drugs, violence and delinquency, it asked ‘should we close our eyes
when immigrants are involved, so as not to be considered a racist?’ The
question was self-answered with a firm ‘absolutely not’.17
As a result of the above developments, immigration and law and
order, two of the Front’s key policy concerns, became more central
elements on the wider mainstream agenda. An analysis of voting
patterns 1984–97 argued: ‘In 1984, relatively few voters aside from
those who supported the National Front considered either immigration
or law and order to be a strong priority. By 1988, the importance of
these issues ranked with such issues as social inequality and far higher
than concerns about the environment, corruption and the construction
of Europe; only concern with unemployment ranked higher.’18
The most devastating impact of the Front, certainly in terms of the
French party system, was the leading role it played in the break-up of
the UDF. Since its inception in 1978, as a party structure for President
´
Vale´ry Giscard d’Estaing to rally the non-Gaullist right and to counter-
balance Chirac’s recently created RPR, the UDF has always been an
umbrella organisation. It has provided ‘shelter’ for a diverse collection
of parties with membership ranging from centrist Christian Democrats
to economic liberals, and from pro-abortionists to anti-abortionists.
Such a loose structure meant that it was awash with factional rivalry.
Its delicate balance of forces was unhinged after the 1998 regional

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elections and the election of three UDF regional council presidents with
Front support. The three were expelled and took many of their support-
ers with them. Such was the crisis for the mainstream right that
President Chirac called a hastily arranged television broadcast to
implore the ‘republican right’ to reject any compromise with the Front,
saying ‘I can only disapprove of those who have preferred political
games to the voice of their conscience’. He also urged FN voters to be
more responsible and to reject the party he called ‘racist’ and ‘xenopho-
bic’.19 While the anti-Front leader of one UDF component called for the
factions within the UDF to merge into a single party, the leader of
another (not totally averse to alliances with the Front) took his out,
leaving a greatly weakened UDF.
To sum up the impact of the Front, France has seen a radicalisation
of both civil and political society. Whilst civil society has largely
demonised the party, political society has flirted with the extreme right,
changing its policies to win over its voters. As a result, a tough line on
immigration has become commonplace amongst the French political
establishment. The establishment will be heartened by the current
divisions on the French extreme right. However, it would be foolish to
write off the undeniably weakened Front. Its impact will continue to be
felt. Whilst the French extreme right may now be going through a
period of transition and recomposition, and the future of the Front
National and the Mouvement National Re´publicain appears uncertain,
there is no denying the impact that the former has made in France.
Conclusion
In the early 1980s, the Front stood very much at the crossroads. A
decade of political activism had brought the party little tangible reward:
voters and members were sparse; fragmentation and internal divisions
were commonplace; and the party was even outflanked, at times, by a
rival extreme right movement. In fact, it was close to collapse and,
unsurprisingly, political commentators were writing off the French
extreme right as a viable force. There were different circumstances in
the 1980s and 1990s: the left in office, the radicalised right in opposi-
tion, the salience of immigration and socio-economic issues, the de
facto legitimation of the Front, proportional representation voting in
European and the 1986 national elections. This plus Le Pen’s charis-
matic leadership resuscitated its political life and consolidated it. The
past year or two, however, have witnessed the unravelling of the its
relative success story as the seeds of success have become the germs of
division.
At least, two factors are pertinent here. First, the party has been very
much associated with Le Pen’s personal and authoritarian leadership.
Various studies have shown how the original president of the party has
maintained his iron grip. Any challenge to this leadership could only,
therefore, be seen as regicidal. Moreover, the fact that Me´gret, too, had

Extreme Right in France
455
built up reservoirs of support within the party apparatus served to
make the attempted coup a very serious event. Second, the party’s
success, in the 1980s in particular, was bound up with the opening to
fellow-travellers, newcomers, (French) New Right ideologues and refu-
gees from other (often mainstream) political parties. Whilst this process
served to boost its fortunes in the short-to-medium term, it brought in
people who would ultimately challenge Le Pen’s strategy and leadership.
Most significantly: whilst Le Pen (through certain controversial remarks
and gestures) had helped to construct his own pariah status in French
politics and was reluctant or unable to reach accommodation with
right-wing politicians at national level, Me´gret and Co. believed that
new leadership, with a more constructive, conciliatory strategy across
the French right as a whole, was the path to greater legitimacy and
success. The examples of governmental alliance in Italy and Austria
could be used to strengthen this argument.
In the immediate, the European elections of 1999 had illustrated that
the sum of a single, united Front was greater than the parts. The
election also showed that, in the interim at least, an ageing and bruised
Le Pen—presiding over a longstanding, well-established party name
and (albeit decimated) apparatus—was more attractive to voters than
the rival Mouvement National Re´publicain. The fact, however, that a
rival populist force—the RPF, led by the dissident Gaullist Charles
Pasqua and the maverick right-wing politician Philippe de Villiers—
comfortably surpassed the combined vote of Le Pen and Me´gret in
1999 suggested (threateningly for both the Front and the Mouvement)
that there was scope for another neo-populist, eurosceptic, staunchly
nationalist, protest (or otherwise) vote outside the extreme right. Not
for the first time, therefore, the Front stood at the crossroads of change
and challenge. The internecine struggle for ascendancy between it and
the Mouvement showed little sign of abating at the turn of the millen-
nium. The 2001 municipal elections, followed by a super-electoral year
in 2002 (parliamentary and presidential elections) will provide a crucial
test for the future of the French extreme right.
1
P. Hainsworth, ‘The Front National: From Ascendancy to Fragmentation on the French Extreme Right’
in P. Hainsworth (ed), The Politics of the Extreme Right: From the Margins to the Mainstream, Pinter,
2000.
2
3
J. Marcus, The National Front and French Politics, Macmillan, 1995.
300 Mesures pour la Re´naissance de la France: Front National Programme de Gouvernement, Editions
Nationales, 1993.
4
C. Flood, ‘National Populism’ in C. Flood and L. Bell, Political Ideology in Contemporary France,
Pinter, 1997.
5
6
See N. Mayer, Ces Franc¸ais qui votent FN, Flammarion, 1999, pp. 20–1.
S. Bastow, ‘Front National Economic Policy: from Neo-Liberalism to Protectionism’, Modern and
Contemporary France, 5(1), 1997, p. 68.
Mayer, op. cit.
Mayer, op. cit.
7
8

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Parliamentary Affairs
9
R. Eatwell, ‘The Dynamics of Right-Wing Electoral Breakthrough’, Patterns of Prejudice, 32(3), July
1998.
10 Mayer, op. cit., pp. 117–32.
11 Mayer, op. cit., pp. 223–45.
12 A. Bihr, Le Spectre de l’Extreˆme Droite: les Franc¸ais dans le Miroir du Front National, Atelier, 1998.
13 J. Shields, ‘La Politique du Pire: The Front National and the 1997 Legislative Election’, French Politics
and Society, Summer 1997, p. 29.
14 P. Davies, The National Front in France: Ideology, Discourse and Power, Routledge, 1999, p. 192.
15 P. Hainsworth, ‘The 1997 Election in France’, Parliamentary Affairs, January 1998.
16 J. Shields, loc. cit., p. 31.
17 Marcus, op. cit., p. 151.
18 M. Schain, ‘The National Front and the French Party System’, French Politics and Society, Winter
1999, p. 8.
19 Press Release, Address by the President of the Republic, 23.3.98.