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A Senior Honors Thesis Submitted to the Department of Political Science at the University of California, San Diego March 28, 2016 Contents Henry James Agee A Senior Honors Thesis Submitted to the Department of Political Science at the University of California, San Diego March 28, 2016 Contents Chapter 1: Introduction.................................................................................................................1 Chapter 2: The Great Lie of the Fifth Republic.............................................................................3 Chapter 3: Literature Review / My Contribution........................................................................5 Chapter 4: A Revolution Left Unsettled, and an Identity Crisis Born.......................................23 Chapter 5: Outlining My Argument.............................................................................................27 Chapter 6: Religion and Nationalism in France Prior to 1789.................................................32 Chapter 7: The Revolution of 1789: Motivations and Outcomes.............................................41 Chapter 8: Rebellion in the Vendée - Fracture Between Republicanism and Religion..........47 Chapter 9: French Catholicism and Politics: 1801 - 1905.........................................................55 Chapter 10: The Modern National Front's Appeal to Cultural Catholicism.............................68 Chapter 11: How the National Front has Struck a Chord that Others Have Not.....................77 Chapter 12: Conclusion: Catholicism and the Destiny of France.............................................83 Acknowledgements I am extremely grateful for John LeJeune and Sanford Lakoff: two mentors who have helped me greatly throughout my undergraduate career at the University of California, San Diego. I would like to thank John for being my advisor, and for providing me with useful insights and good literature throughout the process of writing this thesis; and Sanford for first getting me interested in the Honors Program, as well as giving me confidence in my ability to perform at the university level. Most importantly, I would like to thank them both for their undoubtedly wonderful letters of recommendation which aided in earning me acceptance into law school. Additionally, I want to recognize Victor Magagna for providing me with a solid selection of authors who gave me a conceptual basis for approaching the topic I have broached. Chère Mademoiselle Kamper, Je vous remercie de m'avoir cultivé un amour pour la langue et la culture française. Si je n'étais pas inscrit dans votre classe, je ne ferais jamais ce projet. 1 Introduction "...our eighteenth-century philosophers attacked the Church with a sort of studious ferocity; they declaimed against its clergy, its hierarchy, institutions, and dogmas, and, driving their attack home, sought to demolish the very foundations of Christian belief. This part of eighteenth- century philosophy, stemming as it did from special conditions that the revolution did away with, inevitably tended to lose its appeal once those conditions had been removed and it was, so to speak, submerged by its own triumph... It was far less as a religious faith than as a political institution that Christianity provoked these violent attacks. The Church was hated not because its priests claimed to regulate the affairs of the other world but because they were landed proprietors, lords of manors, tithe owners, and played a leading part in secular affairs; not because there was no room for the Church in the new world that was in the making, but because it occupied the most powerful, most privileged position in the old order that was now to be swept away." - Alexis de Tocqueville1 In the heart of Europe a slumbering beast is beginning to stir; its every movement sending shockwaves throughout the Western World. After a long period of hibernation, this ancient behemoth has once again reared its magnificent head, and his old servants are returning to him once more. After departing from the world stage in a time when he was scorned, the beast known as Nationalism has returned to retake his watch over the whole of Western Civilization. In his absence, the people had made for themselves an idol known as Patriotism, a false god that gave legitimacy to a regime, but created no real sense of belonging for its devoted adherents. 1 Alexis de Tocqueville, The Old Regime and the French Revolution (Anchor Books, 1955), 6-7 2 Those who worshipped the idol are slowly being gathered by the beast who calls out to them from beneath the very soil. Regimes throughout the West have adopted a cosmopolitan multiculturalism, in which the blood that runs through one's veins is irrelevant to one's sense of belonging within society. Western societies have conferred no sense of exclusivity upon the sons and daughters of their founders and ancient inhabitants, leaving many feeling angry and dispossessed. Recent concerns over immigration and ethnic identity have further strengthened the resolve of these true believers, who seek to restore what they see as the crumbling remains of their once illustrious societies. This phenomenon is at the forefront of European politics, with schisms in the European Union over migrant resettlement and border control in the news almost daily, and nationalist populist parties on the rise in many of Europe's foremost countries. In Sweden, the country with the highest amount of resettled refugees per capita, there are the Sweden Democrats. In the United Kingdom, where less than half of the population of London is considered to be White British, there is the UK Independence Party. In Germany, the country at the helm of the EU, and whose Chancellor Angela Merkel has spearheaded resettlement efforts in Europe, there is Alternative for Deutschland. These parties all have four key traits in common: they are right- wing populist, nationalist, eurosceptic, and gaining political traction. The Sweden Democrats received the third largest voter share in the 2014 Swedish general elections (12.9%, up from 5.7% in 2010). The UKIP received the third largest voter share in the 2015 United Kingdom general elections (12.6%, up from 3.1% in 2010), and the largest voter share in the 2014 European Parliament elections (27.5%, up from 16.6% in 2009). Despite being founded in 2013, Alternative for Deutschland won 4.7% of the votes in the 2013 Federal Parliament elections, 3 7.1% of the vote in the 2014 European Parliament elections, and have trended upwards in state parliament elections, receiving 24.4% of the vote in 2016 in Saxony-Anhalt. It is readily apparent that Nationalist sentiment is growing across Europe, but nowhere is it more apparent than in the nation of France. France's analogous party that embodies these four traits is known as the National Front. Established in 1972, and headed by Marine Le Pen, the daughter of the party's founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, the National Front has seen its electoral support increase from a historic low of .2% in the 1981 National Assembly elections, to all time highs of 24.86% in the 2014 European Parliament elections, and 27.73% in the first round of the 2015 Regional elections. The National Front's 27.73% voter share in the 2015 Regional councils was the highest of any party, outstripping both the Union of the Left and the Union of the Right. The National Front is on the precipice of a major electoral breakthrough, and the destiny of Europe hangs in the balance. As arguably the second most important member of the European Union in a spiritual political rather than a tangible economic sense, the election of a eurosceptic party in France that would likely exit the Schengen free travel zone along with the EU in its entirety would be a major development. Such an exit would have with huge consequences for the entire continent, particularly in those countries within the Eurozone. France is on the brink, and depending on how its nationalist experiment goes, many Western European nations may follow suit. The Great Lie of the Fifth Republic The French Revolution of 1789 was characterized by a rejection of monarchical authority, a belief in the notion of equality espoused by Enlightenment thinkers, and a stringent anti-clericalism that sought to divorce the Church from public life entirely. Ostensibly, the Fifth 4 Republic has taken up the ideological mantle of the Revolution; they fly its flag, sing of it in the national anthem, and celebrate July 14 to commemorate the fall of the Bastille. The Preamble to the Constitution even makes use of the Revolutionary slogan: "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity." As a product of this wholly secular political tradition, the French Fifth Republic does not permit any type of discrimination based on nationality, race, or religion, as per Title I Article II of the French Constitution. This means, in effect, that no laws can be made with respect to any distinctions amongst these three categories. Non-discrimination policies are as central to the French Constitution as its national symbols. So why then has the National Front, an almost singularly anti-immigration party, risen to the forefront of French politics in recent years? I argue that this is because the secular revolutionary origins of French republicanism do not accurately represent the attitudes or culture of France as a whole, and that France's historically Catholic roots are a more important political and cultural force than many are apt to believe. Although the legacy of the Revolution bears down upon French politics to this very day, many of its fundamental precepts have been firmly rejected by the populace at large. Within the
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