Marine Le Pen and the 'New' FN: a Change of Style Or of Substance?

Parliamentary Affairs (2013) 66, 179–196 doi:10.1093/pa/gss076 Marine Le Pen and the ‘New’ FN: A Change of Style or of Substance? James Shields* School of Languages and Social Sciences, Aston University, Birmingham B4 7ET, UK Downloaded from *Correspondence: [email protected] The electoral challenge of the far right is an enduringly problematic feature of con- temporary French politics. In the first rounds of the 2012 presidential and parliamentary elections, the Front National (FN) under new leader Marine Le Pen http://pa.oxfordjournals.org/ attracted a combined total of ten million votes, bringing its ultra-nationalist pol- icies to the centre of national political debate. This article examines the FN’s impact on these elections and its implications for French politics. Drawing on of- ficial FN programmes, detailed election results and a range of opinion polling data, it assesses the strength of support for Le Pen and her party and seeks to explain their electoral appeal. In particular, it subjects to analysis the claim that the new leader has ‘de-demonised’ the FN, transforming it from perennial outsider by guest on December 15, 2012 to normal participant in mainstream French politics; and it reflects on the strategic dilemma posed for the centre-right by this newly invigorated far-right challenge. 1. Introduction The first round of the presidential election on 22 April 2012 set a new high point for the far right in France. With 17.9% of the vote, Marine Le Pen finished behind the Socialist candidate François Hollande (28.6%) and the outgoing centre-right president Nicolas Sarkozy (27.2%). Though this result left the Front National (FN) leader a long way short of qualifying for the run-off between the top two candidates, it confirmed her as the third force in French politics, ahead of both Jean-Luc Me´lenchon of the far-left Front de Gauche (11.1%) and François Bayrou of the independent centrist MoDem party (9.1%). Coming little more than a year after her election to succeed her father, Jean- Marie Le Pen, this result also confirmed Marine Le Pen’s unrivalled leadership of a party that had known only Le Pen senior at its head since its launch in 1972. In five presidential election campaigns over more than 30 years, Jean-Marie Le Pen had recorded a first-round high of 16.9% in 2002 when he beat the # The Author [2013]. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Hansard Society; all rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected] 180 Parliamentary Affairs Socialist Lionel Jospin to contest the run-off against incumbent centre-right president Jacques Chirac. In the subsequent election of 2007, under a strong challenge from Sarkozy, Le Pen’s score had been reduced to 10.4%. In terms of vote share, Marine Le Pen’s 17.9% in 2012 was less than the combined 19.2% won by Jean-Marie Le Pen and his former deputy Bruno Me´gret, who stood as separate far-right candidates in 2002; but in actual votes, her tally of 6.4 million on a higher voter turnout far exceeded the 5.5 million attracted jointly in 2002 by Le Pen and Me´gret in the first round and by Le Pen alone in the run-off. Of all the political movements fielding a presidential candidate in 2012, the strongest upward dynamic was recorded by the FN. While Hollande achieved some advance on Se´gole`ne Royal’s 25.9% for the Socialists in 2007 (+2.7%), Downloaded from Sarkozy saw his score drop between the same two elections from 31.2 to 27.2% (24%). The loss of vote share was much more substantial for the centrist Bayrou, who saw his score halved from 18.6 to 9.1% (29.5%), while the combined far left raised its level from some 9 to 13% (+4%). Within that framework, http://pa.oxfordjournals.org/ the 7.5% increase in the FN candidate’s score was especially notable, with Marine Le Pen adding over 2.5 million votes to Jean-Marie Le Pen’s electorate of 2007. In the subsequent parliamentary elections of June 2012, the FN also came close to a historic high. With 13.6% of the first-round vote (3.5 million votes), it recorded its second best ever result, falling short of the 14.9% (3.8 million votes) won in 1997 but again improving on the party’s 2007 score by close to 2.5 million votes. The election of 1997 had been the last occasion when the FN won by guest on December 15, 2012 a seat in the National Assembly. In the 2012 elections, it secured two seats, an in- significant result in numerical terms but one that marked the first time since 1988 when the FN could claim more than a single isolated parliamentary deputy.1 This article considers a number of questions thrown into relief by Marine Le Pen’s performance in the presidential ballot and by the strength of the FN’s showing in the parliamentary elections that followed. Who voted for the FN in these elections, where was its electoral strength concentrated and what were the main motivations underlying its support? What factors in the wider French political context account for the renewed appeal of a party that seemed in irreversible decline as it emerged from the corresponding elections of 2007? And is the FN that Marine Le Pen now leads the same party as was led by her father, or has she succeeded in her brief tenure of the leadership in ‘de-demonising’ it and transforming it from perennial outsider to normal participant in mainstream French politics? 1Summary election results since 2002 are based on Interior Ministry figures, available at http://www. interieur.gouv.fr/sections/a_votre_service/elections/resultats/ (last accessed 10 August 2012). Marine Le Pen and the ‘New’ FN 181 2. The 2012 presidential election: context and campaign Every presidential election is a mirror held up to the national preoccupations of the moment. The 2012 election turned on two main issues: the deep unpopularity of outgoing President Sarkozy and the effects of the European sovereign debt crisis. The election marked the conclusion of a five-year presidency blighted by global then European financial crises. Sarkozy had been elected in 2007 on pro- mises to revitalise the French economy, create more jobs and raise spending power. His election was based on a broad coalition of support from the centre, right and far right, with his promise of far-reaching change and his axiom ‘work more to earn more’ being the resonant themes of the 2007 campaign. Downloaded from Despite the pledge to cut unemployment to 5%, it rose to just under 10% with almost a million more people unemployed by the end of Sarkozy’s term in office, over a third of them due to factory lay-offs. The trade deficit also doubled in the same period to some E70 billion as French industrial competitive- ness slumped, while public debt rose to almost 90% of gross domestic product. http://pa.oxfordjournals.org/ The downgrading of France’s triple-A sovereign debt rating in January 2012 came as confirmation from the financial markets of a French economy in undeni- able decline. As a legacy of reform, Sarkozy could claim a number of important measures. He raised the minimum state pensionable age from 60 to 62; he did not abolish the 35-hour working week but removed taxes on overtime; he gave universities administrative and financial autonomy; he closed 150,000 state sector jobs by re- by guest on December 15, 2012 placing only one retiring public service worker in two; he eased conditions for start-up businesses; and he lightened social charges on employers while raising value-added tax on consumers. Among significant social reforms, the Sarkozy ad- ministration introduced a compulsory minimum public transport service to reduce the impact of strikes; it stepped up the expulsion of illegal immigrants and Roma gypsies; and it banned full-face Muslim veils from all public spheres, along with ending Muslim street prayers. Ill-fated initiatives like the setting up of a Ministry of Immigration and National Identity and the launch of a ‘national debate’ on what it was to be (or not to be) French showed the same concern for being seen to be tough on immigration and the defence of national identity, repaying in part the far-right voters who had played a critical role in the outcome of the 2007 election. Though Sarkozy’s economic measures amounted more to piecemeal change than fundamental reform, protection of France’s threatened ‘social model’ became an issue at the heart of the 2012 presidential campaign. Unemployment, wages, living standards, health and education ranked high among public prior- ities, while Sarkozy laboured under the image of a ‘president of the rich’ and pri- vileged advocate of austerity in a time of growing inequality. The choice made by 182 Parliamentary Affairs Marine Le Pen in this context was to launch a campaign focused initially on economic issues. Her flagship policy was withdrawal from the euro and recovery of national sovereignty, with a return to the French franc, border controls and import tariffs. She promised to raise wages for poorer workers and restore retire- ment at 60 on fully paid-up pension contributions. She would renationalise agri- cultural policy and implement a protectionist agenda of ‘economic patriotism’, essentially building new factories for made-in-France goods and imposing a ‘Buy French’ obligation in public procurement.

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