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Politicus Journal

France and the National Front: Exploring Economic Regime Crisis and the Rise of the Far Right

Alexandra Lloyd

This paper examines the collapse of ’s distributive and accumulative economic regimes in relation to a broad change in voter attitudes and preferences that has led to the political rise of the far-right populist party, the National Front. The country’s continued economic stagnation, as well as its rising inequality has caused anti- establishment and anti-integrationist sentiments to rise within the electorate. In addition to a purely -based analysis, cultural explanations for the increase in xenophobic attitudes and the popularity of the National Front are also considered.

Introduction

Throughout the past twenty years, there has been an increase in the political salience of far right anti-integrationist populist parties in Western developed states.1 In his book and Inequality: ’s Downward Spiral, Rapley argues that the explanation for the rise of these far right parties can be tied to the sphere of political economy and the domestic failures of and acquisition regimes.2,3 According to Rapley, the success of these two regimes leads to political security for ruling within a whereas their failure can cause widespread instability.4,5 Further, Rapley argues that there is a clear correlation between the failure of Western

1 Godin, E. (2013). The porosity between the right and extreme right in france: Les droites décomplexées under nicolas sarkozy and marine le pen's leadership. Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 21(1), 53-67. 2 Rapley, J. (2004). Globalization and inequality: Neoliberalism’s downward spiral. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers. 3 Distributive regimes can be defined as the strategies employed by elites in state that relate to dispersion of within society. Accumulation regimes are the strategies utilized by elites to gain these resources in the first place (Rapley, 2014, pp.30). 4 Rapley, J. (2004). Globalization and inequality: Neoliberalism’s downward spiral. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers. 5 More specifically, Rapley argues that failure in a distributive regime can lead to immediate crisis and political instability, while a failure in an accumulation regime is not as urgently pressing.

48 Politicus Journal distributive regimes and the rise of right-wing parties in the mid-1990s, though he concludes that these parties never gained enough momentum to ascend to have significant numbers in national .6 However, following the economic turmoil of the global financial crisis of 2008, there has been an increasing number of far right parties that have won a historic number of seats in national and international legislatures. For example, France’s far-right party the National Front (NF) lead by Marine Le Pen won the national election for European Parliament seats in 2014, stunning France and the world.7 In this paper it will be argued that the economic stagnation and rising inequality recently experienced in France has caused a failure in the accumulation and distributive regimes within the country, leading to a change in voter attitudes, interests, and preferences that strengthened support towards the NF party. This position will be supported by establishing the failure of France’s current accumulation regime through the use of macroeconomic indicators in order to analyze the effects this economic stagnation has had on voter’s attitudes. Then, France’s distributive regime will be examined to illustrate how rising and income inequality has changed both the political environment and voting behavior in France. In addition, the influence of high public deficit level as well as taxation policy will be examined as factors that further cemented voters’ distrust for more moderate and established political parties within the . Lastly, the counterargument that the rise of far right parties and their xenophobic platforms should be understood through a purely cultural perspective will be outlined and refuted.

Accumulation Regimes and Economic Stagnation

In this section, it will be established through macroeconomic indicators that there is an ongoing crisis with regard to France’s accumulation regime as demonstrated through its stagnate economy. This deficiency of and the continual lack of accumulation of financial and economic resources have impacted attitudes, interests, and preferences of voters to shift towards more populist and anti-globalization parties such as the NF party.

6 Rapley, J. (2004). Globalization and inequality: Neoliberalism’s downward spiral. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers. 7 John, M., & Abboud, L. (2014, May 25). Far-right national front stuns french with EU ‘earthquake’. .

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Though France did not initially seem as affected by the 2008 global financial crisis in comparison to other European Union (EU) countries such as Britain, by 2009 France had entered into an economic .8 At the time of the crisis, France’s economy was heavily dependent on domestic for over 70% of its GDP.9 This reliance on internal economic activity, as well as the French banking system’s lack of open integration with global financial institutions, protected these aspects of the French economy from the effects of the financial crisis.10 However, this does not mean that other sectors of the French economy were shielded from the effects of the 2008 global financial crisis. Namely, the financial crisis caused a sharp contraction of international trade that led to a crisis for French exporting firms whose exports no longer had viable markets, and yet continued importing at a higher cost.11 Thus, a balance of trade deficit was created in France of about $100 billion USD in 2008, which is roughly the same as France’s current balance of trade deficit.12 The collapse of French firms coupled with a high trade imbalance lead to the economic downturn for the French economy during 2008 and 2009.13 Moving into the mid- France has continued to experience widespread economic stagnation. As of March 2015, France’s GDP sat at about 2.8 trillion with an extremely slow economic growth rate of 0.4% over the last four years and a rising deficit of 4.4% of the GDP.14 This growth rate is extremely slow when compared to other EU countries that were initially and more obviously affected by the financial crisis, such as Britain whose economy is estimated to grow by upwards of 3.2% in the next year according to World Bank estimates.15 Despite having one of the highest productivity rates in Europe, France continues to have a marginally high rate of 9.9%, and an extremely high rate of 24%.16 France’s average household net financial wealth per capita is also relatively low, as it sits at USD 48 741,

8 Han, S. (582). Income inequality, electoral systems, and party polarization. European Journal of Political Research, 54 (1), 582-600. 9 Focus Economics, (2016). France economic outlook. Focus Economics. 10 Credit Suisse Research, (2014). The global wealth report. 11 Han, S. (582). Income inequality, electoral systems, and party polarization. European Journal of Political Research, 54 (1), 582-600. 12 OEC, (2016). France [Data file]. 13 Briconge, J., & et al. (2012). Firms and the global crisis: French exports in the turmoil. Journal of International Economics, 87(2), 134-146. 14 OECD, (2015). OECD economic surveys: france 2015. OECD Publishing: Paris. 15 World Bank, (2016b). France [Data file]. 16 OECD, (2015). OECD economic surveys: france 2015. OECD Publishing: Paris.

50 Politicus Journal lower than the OECD average of USD 67 139.17 Overall, France’s slow growth and high unemployment signal that the French economy has entered a period of sustained stagnation. The reasons for France’s continued stagnation in the face of growth throughout the rest of the G7 countries affected by the financial crisis, are varied and complex though a few key factors stand out as major contributors. Firstly, weak product in some markets has led to raising production costs, ultimately undermining potential economic efficiency.18 The government’s strict labour has contributed to high unemployment, as both the private and public sectors suffer from a lack of flexibility and efficiency. Further, these laws have been shown to unfairly target young workers’ and choice of jobs, which explains the extremely high youth unemployment rate.19 Lastly, unsustainably high levels of public spending without any resulting job growth has caused France’s deficit to continue to increase, adding yet another burden to France’s potential economic growth.20 A clear correlation can be seen with regard to the economic crisis of France’s accumulation regime from 2008 onwards, and the political rise of the NF party in France from 2010 onwards. The financial crisis negatively affected most voters’ opinions of the established parties within the French and the European parliaments. Suffering the social costs of continued economic stagnation, such as rising unemployment rates, French voters began to become dissatisfied with the traditional political parties in France. Further, disaffected voters turned towards radical parties like the NF, as these parties were seen by voters to be outside of traditional spheres of government.21 After the effects of the economic crisis fully set in, voters shifted towards the NF as it was the only party with “clean hands” in regard to the failure of the French economy.22 The negative economic effects of 2009 recession led to increased critical opinions of established political parties within France that allowed for furthered political support given to the country’s more radical parties.

17 Ibid. 18 Ibid. 19 Ibid. 20 Ibid. 21 Godin, E. (2013). The porosity between the mainstream right and extreme right in france: Les droites décomplexées under nicolas sarkozy and marine le pen's leadership. Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 21(1), 53-67. 22 Mondon, A. (2015). The french secular hypocrisy: The extreme right, the republic and the battle for hegemony. Patterns of , 49(4), 392-413.

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Not only did voter attitudes shift against the established government, but they also moved to be less accepting of global liberalization and globalization after the financial crisis. The financial crisis mainly affected France because of its dependence on global markets. In order to capitalize off of the frustrations of the , the new NF leader, Le Pen, shifted her party away from its past openly racist platform towards a newer more populist, anti-integration, anti-establishment platform. In particular, Le Pen drew on voters’ anger regarding increasing unemployment rates and anti-globalization sentiments in her 2012 campaign.23 The National Front positioned itself as a party that protects “the people” from the negative effects of globalization, which was blamed for creating France’s poor economic performance24. This rhetoric led the party to an increase in popularity. The NF first won 12% of the vote in the 2010 regional elections, then 15% of the vote in the 2011 cantonal elections.25 The party had its major breakthrough with political salience after it won 20% of the populous vote in the 2012 presidential elections.26 In sum, voter dissatisfaction caused in part by economic stagnation led to a political opportunity for the NF to capitalize off of legitimate frustrations the people had with their government’s accumulation regime failure.

Distributive Regime and : A Market Based Perspective

France’s recent economic stagnation must also be considered in tandem with its rising rates of socioeconomic inequality among its population, as the country’s loss of growth did not affect every income level in society equally. In this section, France’s rising rates of inequality will be established and explained from a market-based perspective in order to illustrate how market forces have led to changes in both the political environment of France as well as voting preferences amongst certain groups.

23 Ibid. 24 Godin, E. (2013). The porosity between the mainstream right and extreme right in france: Les droites décomplexées under nicolas sarkozy and marine le pen's leadership. Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 21(1), 53-67. 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid.

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The OECD states that the top 20% of France’s income earners earn more than five times the rate of the bottom 20%.27 From 2005 to 2011, the for net income in France has risen from 0.29 to 0.34, one of the only G7 countries to do so after the financial crisis.28 When calculated with part-time or self-employed workers, France’s Gini coefficient rises even more29. When segregated between market and net income, the OECD showed that market income is more unequally distributed with a Gini coefficient of about 0.44 in the late 2000s.30,31 In addition to rising income inequality, Credit Suisse Research has found that there is rising wealth inequality in France since 2009 as well.32 These statistics show a relative rise in inequality in France during the past several years. From a purely market-based perspective, France’s rising inequality in the last few years can be explained by the effects the 2008 financial crisis had on the country. In comparison to other G7 countries, France is one of three countries in the G7 to report rising wealth inequality after 2007.33 The effect that the financial crisis had in other countries was a somewhat equalizing one, as states directly affected in the banking crisis saw a drop in wealth inequality due to the collapse the large banks disproportionately affecting the wealthy in those countries closest to the centre of the crash.34 This is because France was not as immediately affected by the finial crisis of 2008, as its banking system was more regulated and less globally integrated than many other European countries. France was not as detrimentally affected by the crisis through connections in the financial sector, such as Britain’s financial sector, but rather through a drop in GDP and foreign trade.35 The majority of French workers felt the negative effects of economic depression, such as

27 OECD, (2011). An overview of growing income inequalities in OECD Countries: Main findings. OECD Publishing: Paris. 28 World Bank. (2016c). Gini index (world bank estimate) [Data file]. 29 OECD, (2011). An overview of growing income inequalities in OECD Countries: Main findings. OECD Publishing: Paris. 30 Ibid. 31 This comparative increase in market income inequality can be explained by lack of progressive income rates and social security contributions by the state. 32 Credit Suisse Research, (2014). 33 Ibid. 34 Ibid. 35 Briconge, J., & et al. (2012). Firms and the global crisis: French exports in the turmoil. Journal of International Economics, 87(2), 134-146.

53 Politicus Journal high unemployment rates and strict labour laws, whereas the wealthy elite in France suffered very little consequences. This recent rise of market-driven socioeconomic stratification has impacted both the political environment as well as voter’s preferences immensely, giving rise to increased anti- establishment and xenophobic attitudes. In terms of France’s political environment, there has been a broad shift to the right among more centre-right parties as France’s political discourse begins to polarize.36 Increasing income inequalities create incentives for political parties to polarize as central conflicts between core supporters of left wing and right wing parties become more relevant.37 Thus, political parties are more incentivized to appeal to their core supporters with more extremist positions on divisive issues. Permissive electoral systems, such as France’s plurality voting system, allow for parties to easily change their position without restriction. This was illustrated in France through the NF’s repositioning of itself as a more populist under Le Pen’s leadership in recent years.38 Overall, the rise of inequality within the population created the need for more divergent political spaces, as different sections of the population begin to have various more polarized views on salient issues. With regard to voting behaviour, changes in income inequality have correlated with support for the xenophobic and populist platform of the NF. The majority of the population have been given cause to believe that they are being withheld resources that should be rightfully theirs. As reported by Halligan, there is rising anger in youths and the middle classes who feel like they are being systemically disadvantaged by a system that only benefits the wealthy French elite.39 Thus, these voters seek to exercise what political power they do have to vote for parties they see as outside the establishment such as the NF. The NF explicitly critiques of the political establishment that these voters feel excluded from. Further, these voters are attracted to the populism offered by far-right parties such as the NF as they draw on concepts of egalitarianism that are rooted in

36 Godin, E. (2013). The porosity between the mainstream right and extreme right in france: Les droites décomplexées under nicolas sarkozy and marine le pen's leadership. Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 21(1), 53-67. 37 Han, S. (582). Income inequality, electoral systems, and party polarization. European Journal of Political Research, 54 (1), 582-600. 38 Godin, The porosity between the mainstream right, 53-67. 39 Halligan, L. (2014, October 14). How did france get it so wrong?: As france's economy stagnates under francois hollande's socialist government, there are fears that ed miliband would repeat his mistakes if he won power. The Telegraph.

54 Politicus Journal particularism and in-group mentalities that appeal to the working and middle classes.40 Therefore, it can be concluded that middle and lower class workers’ dissatisfaction with the current distributive regime in France has contributed to the NF’s popularity. Another side effect of growing inequalities is the rise of xenophobic attitudes towards immigrants. There is a strong link between the loss of social mobility caused by systemic economic inequalities in Europe and sectarian intolerance. This is furthered by the loss of economic agency caused by growing inequalities, collective and individual actors exercise xenophobic attitudes when faced with a distributive regime crisis by which they are being negatively affected.41 Immigrant groups are often used as scapegoats for the systemic problems caused by the failure of distributive regimes to adequately and effectively redistribute resources in society. The scapegoating of immigrants as the cause of economic issues such as , unemployment, and income inequality in society appeals to working and middle class workers’ desire to find a simple solution to a complex problem.42 As immigrant groups are already racialized and “othered” in society, they make an easily exploitative target for far right groups like the NF to place blame upon in order to gain voters. To conclude, market forces related to the global financial crisis has led to increased economic inequality amongst French citizens, causing a shift in both the political landscape as well as voter attitudes.

Distributive Regimes and Economic Inequalities: A State-Centric Analysis

The more recent market-driven failure of France’s accumulation and distributive regimes simply worked to continue to raise socioeconomic stratification that had been in France for the past century. This stratification has been caused by poor public policy and fiscal management on the part of the French government. There has been a lack of adequate response from the French government to the changing economic conditions since the 2009 depression, leading France to a situation where there are not enough revenues to maintain current public spending levels. Thus there has been a significant breakdown in the redistribution of resources by the French state,

40 Derks, A. (2005). Populism and the ambivalence of egalitarianism: How do the underprivileged reconcile a right wing party preference with their socio-economic attitudes?. World Political Science Review, 2(3), 175-200. 41 Burgi, N. (2014). Societies without citizens: The anomic impacts of labor market restructuring and the erosion of social rights in europe. European Journal of Social Theory, 17(3), 290-306. R 42 Derks, Populism and the ambivalence of egalitarianism: 175-200.

55 Politicus Journal causing a loss of legitimacy in the eyes of voters and leading to a change in voter attitudes towards the more anti-establishment parties. The OECD suggests one of the largest reasons for France’s economic decline is its increased and unsustainable public spending.43 This massive public spending is overall negative for the French economy and French workers, as it creates massive public spending deficits which can hinder growth while at the same time not effectively addressing issues surrounding social mobility in the country.44 While high public spending may seem like a classic example of state redistribution of wealth, this is simply not the case with France. Rather social spending in France goes largely towards pensions and healthcare, which are mainly utilized by the elderly, not government safety nets for the poor or public works projects for the working age sector of the population.45 Further, France’s social policies are not geared towards progressive redistribution and its funding for public spending comes not from rates, but from a mix of a regressive payroll tax, a regressive sales tax, and a small general social contribution tax.46 These payroll can actually hurt workers the most, as these taxes act as a disincentive to create jobs on the part of the employer, while at the same time allowing the wealthiest members of French society to be largely unaffected by taxation.47 Though there are high tax rates on most income brackets, the wealthy are not “taxed down” the same way they are in , meaning that the average worker is the one most hurt by the state’s tax system.48 Moreover, France has the least progressive tax system out of the entire EU, with high rates of among elites.49 There has been a steady rise of as a percentage of the disposable income over the past thirty years, leading to a situation where annual inheritance flow makes up around 20% of disposable income in France.50 France’s taxation is focused on the labour market and earned , not bequest taxation, creating a situation where the rich are able to get richer through their non-taxable

43 OECD, (2015). OECD economic surveys: france 2015. OECD Publishing: Paris. 44 Smith, T. (2004). France in crisis: Welfare, inequality and globalization since 1980. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 45 Ibid. 46 Ibid. 47 Ibid. 48 Ibid. 49 Ibid. 50 Picketty, Thomas et al. (2013).The top 1 percent in international and historical perspective. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 27(3), 3-20.

56 Politicus Journal inheritance.51 Thus France’s taxation system further entrenches economic inequalities among its citizens. In summary, France’s inefficient public spending and taxation systems have deepened socioeconomic stratification within the country. The consequences of these long-term public policy initiatives are similar to those already discussed in relation to market driven failures in distributive and accumulative regimes. Once again there is a sense that many working and middle class voters feel like the system is set up to work against them. Young working and middle class people in particular feel disenfranchised, as they see few of the benefits of taxation in France yet receive proportionally higher taxes than the elites in the government.52 Low income factory workers know that the French system is not progressive, and that higher class lawyers and brokers can simply deal in cash to avoid taxation in a tax system that is already built in favour of the wealthy.53 This has created resentment towards the government on the part of low income workers. Moreover, these groups feel like the government is unresponsive to their desires as recent polls suggest 61% of France’s labour pool supports extending the legal limit on the working week and relaxing strict labour that have caused chronic unemployment. These polls also suggest that 56% of the population supports lower public spending as well.54 Yet no significant action has been taken by the government on these public policy issues.55 It is not surprising, when taking these factors into account, that the French people would turn their support to a populist party that promises sweeping political change to the establishment if elected. The NF also gives voters a sense of their national identity back through its hyper-nationalist narrative that many voters had lost due to their dissatisfaction with the state.56 In sum, the working – and middle – class supporters of the NF were in part influenced to vote for that party based on distrust of the current government.

51 Ibid. 52 Chrisafis, A. (2012, April 30). French election: Marine le pen voters grapple with their role as kingmakers. . 53 Smith, T. (2004). France in crisis: Welfare, inequality and globalization since 1980. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 54 Halligan, L. (2014, October 14). How did france get it so wrong?: As france's economy stagnates under francois hollande's socialist government, there are fears that ed miliband would repeat his mistakes if he won power. The Telegraph. 55 OECD, (2015). OECD economic surveys: france 2015. OECD Publishing: Paris. 56 Burgi, N. (2014). Societies without citizens: The anomic impacts of labor market restructuring and the erosion of social rights in europe. European Journal of Social Theory, 17(3), 290-306.

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Alternative Perspectives: A Cultural Explanation of Voting Behaviour

There are of course alternative arguments within the literature that explain the rise of right wing parties in France from a different perspective, instead choosing to place primary importance on cultural factors while disregarding economic factors entirely.57 This argument states that increases in as well as perceived cultural differences have led to challenges to the secular white Francophone identity, causing support for the strongly anti-immigration NF party to grow. According to the OECD, in 2001 France accepted 91 875 immigrants into the country. This number has continuously increased over the past ten years and rose to 171 925 by 2013,58 Due to a very low fertility rate of 2.0, the French economy is faced with a declining population and is forced to allow in immigrants in order to maintain population levels.59 However, it has been argued that this increased rate of migration can lead to social tensions within the state.60 There have been racial tensions in France for centuries, however it has been argued that with the most recent influx of immigration into the country xenophobia and is reaching new heights.61 The racist rhetoric used by radical political parties within France has changed with the times as well, and has shifted to take on a distinctly nationalist angle. The type of racial prejudice exhibited by the NF in its policies towards immigrants is not traditional in the sense that it does not explicitly link Whiteness to racial superiority.62 Instead, the discourse on immigration has shifted to an “us versus them” rhetoric of cultural difference, where the cultural divide is seen too large to cross and it is presumed that there will always be conflict between the Western and Islamic civilizations.63 Further, Godin writes that the FN’s “anti-integrationist stance against immigrants, and particularly Muslims, is justified by the belief that they cannot be assimilated into the national community because of the radical incompatibility between their ethnic and cultural roots and that of the French nation”. Therefore, an argument can be made that with an increase in immigration rates there has

57 Rydgren, J. (2008). Immigration sceptics, xenophobes or racists? -wing voting in six west european countries. European Journal of Political Research, 47(6), 737-765. 58 OECD, (2016). International migration database [Data file]. 59 World Bank. (2016a). Fertility rate, total (births per woman) [Data file]. 60 Rydgren, J. (2008). Immigration sceptics, xenophobes or racists? radical right-wing voting in six west european countries. European Journal of Political Research, 47(6), 737-765. 61 Ibid. 62 Mondon, A. (2015). The french secular hypocrisy: The extreme right, the republic and the battle for hegemony. Patterns of Prejudice, 49(4), 392-413. 63 Ibid.

58 Politicus Journal been a perceived rise in cultural clashes leading to rises in anti-immigration attitudes amongst voters. While migration and identity have arguably contributed to the rise of xenophobic attitudes seen in the NF in France, it would be reductionist to say that rise of far-right parties is solely created through cultural mixing. The overall consensus in the literature is that increase in xenophobic sentiments tied to far-right parties is largely due to complex economic and political factors, as well as issues of ethnic identity64 . Further, it has had been proven empirically that larger immigration populations do not necessarily lead to furthered racism and xenophobia in European countries.65 Instead, findings identified complex factors such as , unemployment, and fiscal redistribution needed to be considered as well in order to adequately explain ethnic intolerance in the region66 . Therefore, while a cultural perspective can add useful insights to anti- immigration sentiments in France, political and economic factors must be considered as well.

Conclusion

This essay’s focus on the correlation between the rise of the far right in France to the economic regime crisis has illuminated several overlapping factors as to why French voters’ attitudes have shifted to the right in the past several years. The failure of France’s acquisition and distribution regimes, driven both by market-based and state-based forces, has caused: lower and middle class workers to be dissatisfied with the established government; more political opportunities for populist right wing parties; and a furthered distrust of globalization and immigrant populations amongst conservative voters. As Western countries continue to face long term growth problems and rising inequalities into the future, the discussion surrounding far right politicians and political parties will become increasingly salient.

64 Roemer, J. E., & Straeten, K. V. d. (2005). Xenophobia and the size of the public sector in france: A politico-economic analysis. Journal of Economics - Zeitschrift Für Nationalökonomie, 86(2), 95-144. 65 Jesuit, K., Paradowski, P., & Mahler, V. (2009).Electoral support for extreme right-wing parties: A sub-national analysis of western European elections. Electoral Studies, 28 (2009). 279-290 66 Ibid.

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