In a recent poll for the French presidential election in 2017, far-right politician Marine Le Pen is polling ahead of the president of France by a whopping eight percentage points. This is the continuation of a long trend that has skyrocketed her party to the top of French politics. Mrs. Le Pen’s numbers indicate that she is very likely to advance to the runoff of the two-round presidential election. The success of Marine Le Pen and her party, the National Front, is surprising considering the extremity of the party’s rhetoric. However, the root of this success lies in the history of France and, in particular, the failure of the French economy.
Starting in the early 20th century, hundreds of thousands of immigrants and their families—predominately Muslims from Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia—arrived in France to work in the auto, steel, and coal industries. Many of those who stayed in their new country formed families and had children. These immigrants were French by law—and in the case of pre-1962 Algeria, they had possessed French citizenship before arriving on European soil—but to many in the French population they remained foreigners. Their collective quality of life was far below that of the average Frenchman. They worked for meager wages and lived in shantytowns, and the socioeconomic impact of this extreme poverty can still be observed today. In many ways, they are still treated as second-class citizens. The far right has effectively used this immigration situation as a tool for political gain.
The National Front was founded in the 1972 by Jean Marie Le Pen, Marine’s father. In the early years of the party, immigration restriction was not a primary issue, but along with economic isolationism it soon became central to the party’s rhetoric. French voters were unreceptive to his extreme stance during his first presidential candidacy; however, leading up to the year 1990, he began to increase in popularity.
Franck Recoing, a member of the Marseille Chamber of Commerce, stated in an interview with the HPR that the root of support for Marine Le Pen is economic. The French economy, he states, began to decline in 1990. Unemployment rose and the national debt climbed. Discontent with the economic state of affairs has been building in France since that time. As a result of this discontent, a portion of the French population shifted the blame to the Muslim immigrant population. According to Recoing, many French “don’t like … foreign people to live with them and take their jobs. And so there is a kind of racism, … and unfortunately Marine Le Pen has a kind of speech that is … centered on [ethnically] French [people].” In addition to being ethnocentric, Le Pen is also economically protectionist. She’s said that she wants to “destroy the European Union” and claimed that the Euro was “created by Germany, for Germany.” Recoing explained, “She has a lot of success because people who absolutely want to have good jobs, to have better lives … think that she’s right. She says it’s better to give aid to French people than other people.” But the economic decline that initiated the popularity of the National Front was a quarter of a century ago. Why is the party just beginning to pose a legitimate threat to the president?
Part of the answer to the question is rooted in a sharp change in the dominant rhetoric of the party. The party saw some success under the leadership of Jean Marie Le Pen, who made it past the first round of the presidential election in 2002 before being trounced in the second round by then-incumbent Jacques Chirac. Making it to the runoff was a shocking achievement, especially considering Mr. Le Pen’s extremely controversial rhetoric. He has made several extremely controversial statements including one that referred to the Holocaust as “a mere detail of World War II” and another where he contended that “the races are not equal.” He was convicted of incitement to racial hatred for the Holocaust statement. Furthermore, his rhetoric has helped to incite violence. At a 1988 rally to restore the guillotine as punishment for street crime, his supporters physically attacked students and minorities.
Marine Le Pen has slightly less extreme positions than her father. For example, Jean Marie believes in complete restriction of immigration whereas she only calls for significant but not complete restriction. Yet the essence of her views are the same as her father’s. She publically maintains all of the positions (like immigration reform and isolationism) that made him popular enough to go up against the president in a second round runoff election. Furthermore, she has generally been far more successful than her father in avoiding controversial and inflammatory statements on racial matters. This appeals to moderates who are sympathetic to her views. In the words of Mr. Recoing, Jean Marie Le Pen “is considered as somebody who is extreme right and dangerous. It is not the same for Marine Le Pen because she … wants to make her ideas [achieve] more and more success. She knows how to manage in order to have a good image.”
Furthermore, there is the perception that the Le Pens seem to be having relationship issues. Marine reportedly moved out of her father’s estate after an incident with her cat. Marine also has considered changing the party name in order to distance herself from its past. This has drawn considerable criticism from her father, who called the idea of a name change “completely, moronic, scandalous, [and] indecent.” In June, he bitterly attacked her, saying that she was turning the National Front into a “bizarre, insipid, and conformist party like any other.” This growing rift between father and daughter might be politically beneficial. Jean Marie’s stamp of disapproval allows Marine to distance herself from the party’s extremely controversial past.
Mrs. Le Pen is incredibly powerful now, but she isn’t quite within reach of the presidency yet. She is currently close to former President Sarkozy in the polls. Voters may be more comfortable with Sarkozy because they’ve seen him in power before, but he has already been elected out of office once. According to Mr. Recoing, if Sarkozy beats Le Pen in the presidential election, but fails to help the ailing economy, the French people may turn to someone new. That new person may very well be Marine Le Pen. The political leadership of someone who wishes to destroy the euro and drastically slow immigration could cause a significant shift in the political landscape of Europe.
Image source: Der Spiegel