Tactical Variation in Core Policy Formation by the Front National

RADICAL OR NOT SO RADICAL? Tactical Variation in Core Policy Formation by the Front National James Shields Aston University Some General Tenets It is conventional wisdom among analysts of political parties that the more radical a party is in its policy positions, the less likely it is to alter those positions; conversely, the more moderate a party is, the more it is prone to shift its policy stances in relation to the median voter.1 Thus parties that locate themselves outside the mainstream Left or Right (communist, ultra-nationalist), or that promote themselves along single-issue axes cutting across traditional Right-Left cleavages (ecologist, regionalist), show a low degree of responsiveness to variations in public opinion or to changes in the policy orientations of their mainstream adversaries. The “dynamic representation” model of policy responsiveness2 does not apply to parties thus defined as “radical,” presenting a far-left, far-right, or single-issue ideology and program. This policy rigid- ity―or “policy stability”3― is seen as a defining feature of such parties, while policy shifts in relation primarily to public opinion are a defining feature of their mainstream, catch-all opponents. A further aspect to this distinction is that, even when radical party elites might be inclined to moderate their party’s policy orientations for electoral or tactical gain, the activist base is likely to resist such a move. Activists in radical parties tend to be strongly policy-focused and disposed to resist ideological compromise as a “sell-out” of the party’s values. This can provoke internal dis- sension, demobilize activists, and damage the party as a coherent political unit. Ideological stability, or stasis, therefore constitutes not a choice but an imperative, and policy radicalism a pragmatic strategy. As has been argued elsewhere, these parties can quickly become “prisoners of their ideologies,” French Politics, Culture & Society, Vol. 29, No. 3, Winter 2011 doi:10.3167/fpcs.2011.290306 Radical or Not So Radical? 79 having “no real choice other than to cling to the policy ground they have staked out for themselves.”4 Yet another general observation in relation to such parties is that ostracism by their mainstream opponents tends to perpetuate their radicalism. The exclusion of these parties from “normal” politics is a structuring factor in their self-definition as radical outsiders, leaving them often dominated by their most hardline factions and with little incentive to deradicalize, while parties that are allowed to participate in the political process tend to adjust their policy stances, attenuate their radicalism, and appeal to a wider potential electorate. Egregious historical exceptions notwithstanding, a variant of this tendency to “deradicalize” goes back to the classic formulation of Robert Michels: that as parties extend their organizational and electoral reach beyond an ideologically committed core, they will moderate their more radical goals in order to consolidate and expand their wider base.5 The conclusions of recent research into the effects of political exclusion on far-right anti-immigration parties suggest that strategies of ostracism act as a stimulant to the policy radicalism of these parties and an obstacle to their becoming less extremist, while cooperation with mainstream parties has a moderating effect on their internal dynamics and policy orientations.6 Whether mainstream parties cooperate or not with a radical challenger, they can be susceptible to ideological or policy contagion and can in turn lend legitimation to the latter’s positions. As pressure from radical parties grows (historically, on the French center Left from the Communist Party; more recently, on the center Right from the Front National), so the dilemma for proximate moderate parties grows too. By refusing to engage with the threat from their flank, they might seek to reduce the competitive space and dis- qualify an issue from public debate, but they risk leaving that issue for others to exploit. By adopting an oppositional stance, they might raise the issue in public awareness to the radical challenger’s benefit. Finally, by assuming a more radical position themselves, they might hope to appropriate a mobilizing issue and thereby neutralize the threat from their flank; but they risk, too, increasing the salience of the issue, endorsing its importance, and strengthen- ing rather than weakening that threat.7 Where mainstream parties succeed in such an attempt at cooptation, they may ensure a degree of ideological pene- tration to the ideas or policies they appropriate; but if they overstep the bounds―or “region of acceptability”8― for their own voters, they risk themselves being penalized. The dilemma is therefore whether―and how far―to dismiss, oppose or accommodate the core issue of a radical challenger, with dangers attendant on all three strategic choices.9 In the light of these general tenets, this article examines the case of the Front national (FN) in relation to what has throughout been perceived as its core policy issue: immigration. To what extent has this party in its immigration policy been defined from the outset by its radicalism? Has that radicalism been a constant or has it varied with time and circumstance? What has been 80 James Shields the relationship between the FN and the center-right parties in terms of influ- encing or moderating the FN’s stance on immigration? And what has been, in turn, the effect on the center-right parties of an FN mobilizing strong support on this issue? The article will argue that, far from being a “prisoner of its ideology,” the FN has exercised a sometimes surprising freedom to review, revise, and at times revoke important aspects of that ideology in relation to the core issue of immigration. This variation on immigration policy has largely escaped analysis and even detection, since the FN is widely viewed as an unreformed, and unre- formable, anti-immigrant party that has remained essentially on the same policy continuum over its near forty-year existence. Examination of its programs and pronouncements over that period, however, reveals a more nuanced pic- ture, while also showing a reciprocal dynamic of influence between the FN and the parties of the center Right. By focusing on a number of election cam- paigns, manifestos, and defining moments in the FN’s development, the article will show how the party has expanded or contracted its radicalism in response to contextual factors and tactical considerations. It will reveal an FN less bound to a fixed policy and more prone to seek accommodation (with changing circumstance, public opinion, or its center-right adversaries) than the foregoing observations would suggest. The article will conclude by con- sidering whether the first change of leadership undergone by this party in Jan- uary 2011 might confine it to the radical fringes of the Right or see it adopt a more center-oriented course. The 1970s: The Cultivation of a Core Issue For a party founded in 1972 to unite the diverse currents of the French far Right, the FN did not contest its first legislative election in 1973 on a particu- larly radical platform. Its electoral program, Défendre les Français, declared France to be in a moral and political crisis and, with recent memories of May ’68 and a newly signed “Union de la Gauche,” called for the restoration of traditional values and mobilization against a French Communist Party (PCF) that was already “aux portes du pouvoir.”10 What may be most surprising for today’s reader is the program’s very limited reference to immigration, evoked in terms that do not anticipate the later importance of this issue for the FN. In its political charter of 1970, the FN’s predecessor, Ordre nouveau, had defined the goal of the “combat nationaliste” as “la défaite nécessaire du marxisme,” without the merest reference to immigration.11 The early FN retained this anti- Marxist focus, demanding “un contrôle strict des interventions politiques et économiques des puissances étrangères” in French public life.12 In only the briefest references to immigration, it denounced “une immigration sauvage, dans des conditions matérielles et morales désastreuses pour les intéressés et déshonorantes pour notre pays,” and “la constitution de véritables quartiers Radical or Not So Radical? 81 ou villes étrangères en France, élément d’éclatement et de remise en cause de l’unité et de la solidarité de notre peuple.” Proposing measures to increase the national birth rate, this earliest of FN programs lamented that “la France, par manque de main-d’œuvre nationale, est obligée de faire appel, chaque jour davantage, à des travailleurs étrangers dont la culture d’origine ne permet pas l’intégration dans la société française.”13 Here the FN did little more than reiterate the conclusions of a government advisory report of 1969―the Calvez Report on “Le Problème des travailleurs étrangers”―which had distinguished between immigrants who were “facile- ment assimilables” (European) and those who might constitute “un îlot inas- similable” (North African).14 The party had not yet coined the crude equation between immigration and unemployment that economic recession would later allow it to exploit. In a letter to Le Monde in February 1973, Le Pen even recognized a real need in France for immigrant workers, though he called for “la réglementation sévère de l’immigration des étrangers et, en particulier, de ceux d’origine extra-européenne,” who should be subject

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