he Rise of French Populism: An Election in a Most TFractured Landscape Recent Popular Social Movements Populism Benoît Hamon Jean-Luc Mélenchon François Fillon Marine Le Pen Emmanuel Macron Conclusion Ramadan - Shawwal 1438 31 June - July 2017 2 © KFCRIS, 2017 ISSN: 1658-6972 Issue No. 31 - 20/06/2017 L.D. No: 1438/2868 Ramadan - Shawwal 1438 - June - July 2017 Ramadan - Shawwal 1438 - June - July 2017 3 opulism is said to be the major new political trend. From PBrexit to the election of Donald Trump in the United States, old ideas and conceptions of the Left and Right are being deconstructed before our eyes faced with populist mantras. The French presidential election of 2017 was a story of a pro-European, pro-business, globalist centrist candidate and underdog, Emmanuel Macron, defeating the favored right-wing candidate, decimating the Socialist left, and going on to win a super majority in the National Assembly, with a movement- turned-party he only recently created. However, what is not told, are the populist elements and narratives, coopted by all candidates in the French presidential election, and how this aided Macron where it delegitimized most others. This paper analyses does just that, in exploring and analyzing populist narratives in all the major French presidential candidates’ campaigns, as well as the context and evolution of populist sentiment in contemporary France in general to better understand how we have arrived at this point, and perhaps to better understand the direction Macron will take France and Europe. Ramadan - Shawwal 1438 - June - July 2017 Ramadan - Shawwal 1438 - June - July 2017 4 “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”— Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The 2017 presidential election was supposed to would not seek a second term would end a semester bring about the embracing of a complete alternative of turmoil between the two heads of the executive: to (and rejection of) the five years of socialist President Hollande and his reformist prime minister, François Hollande’s presidency. The right-wing Manuel Valls. With poll numbers much higher primaries had been an electoral success for the than those of the president, Prime Minister Valls main opposition party, Les Républicains (LR [the challenged Hollande for months to exhort him to Republicans]), with over 4 million voters in the right- withdraw, in order to allow the former to become the wing primaries choosing a former prime minister of socialist candidate in this election. Nicolas Sarkozy (president in 2007–2012), François The left was massively divided in the 2017 election. Fillon, to be their champion. All the mainstream Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the spokesman of the Parti de media and most commentators assumed that the gauche (PG [Party of the Left]), was determined to right-wing primaries were, de facto, the round of the become the leader of an “alternative left” and regain presidential election, as the right was expected to be disappointed socialist voters. However, Socialist the clear favorite due to Hollande’s complete lack of Party loyalists (regardless of how disappointed they popularity. This prediction was also credible because were by the Hollande presidency), along with the the far-right Front National (FN [the National president’s own majority supporters in the National Front]) and its leader, Marine Le Pen, were rising in Assembly, would go on to contest Mélenchon on popularity: Everyone was certain she would win in a number of occasions. Those socialist hard-liners the first round and take her party higher than it had would eventually claim victory in the socialist ever been. It was assumed that voters would then primaries, when former education minister Benoît pragmatically choose to vote for the mainstream Hamon unexpectedly outperformed and beat Manuel conservative candidate, François Fillon. Valls, becoming the Socialist Party candidate at the Unlike the 2002 presidential elections, when Le end of January. However, while the socialist primaries Pen’s father (then head of the FN) shocked the were meant to bring all the different branches and country by landing the far right a spot in the first parties of the left together under a single umbrella round of elections, which led to a massive turnout so that they could advance in a unified manner in for Jacques Chirac (the mainstream conservative the presidential election, this would not come to candidate) stemming from rejection and fear of the pass. Two main players on the left would refuse to then-taboo idea of a far-right presidency, in 2017 coalesce under the envisioned socialist-led coalition: the media and commentators had come to believe • Jean-Luc Mélenchon would form a new far- that Marine Le Pen would be going into the runoff.1 left movement called La France insoumise Hollande’s Parti Socialiste (PS [Socialist Party]), had (Indomitable France).3 suffered heavy losses following five years of erratic • Former economy minister Emmanuel Macron, a government, and the French people were ready to former socialist, would go on to create his own, close the book on Hollande’s presidency. This would independent movement, En Marche! (EM [On the lead to his unprecedented decision not to run in the Move!], after leaving the Hollande government 2017 election.2 Hollande’s announcement that he in early to mid-2016 to explore his candidacy. Ramadan - Shawwal 1438 - June - July 2017 Ramadan - Shawwal 1438 - June - July 2017 5 His road to the presidency represents the largest class on the part of voters. Nearly every single political upset in France in decades and has political event that involved the established political defied all the basic assumptions of establishment coalitions, parties, or groups (familles politiques, or politics, while bringing a new generation of “political families,” to use French political parlance) voters into the political process and attracting can be understood as a near-complete rejection of over 250,000 supporters in the one year after its the establishment. The five main candidates running foundation in April 2016. in this election benefited from the voters’ craving The 2017 presidential election in France took place for change, with all of them employing populism to in a context of great disaffection with the political advance his or her political agenda. Recent Popular Social Movements The year 2016 in France saw the emergence of States and the Indignados movement in Spain. The a variety movements contesting the authority Nuit Debout phenomenon eventually spread to of the state on a wide range of issues. The most other cities, with protests against various liberal and famous of these movements was one that protested reformist initiatives of Hollande’s prime minister, the Law of August 8, 2016, Relating to Labor, Manuel Valls. Many left-wing politicians tried to Modernizing Social Dialogue, and Securing take advantage of the movement, such as Jean-Luc Professional Trajectories (Loi no. 2016-1088 du 8 Mélenchon, who referred to himself as its political août 2016 relative au travail, à la modernisation continuation. However, this movement disappeared du dialogue social et à la sécurisation des parcours before the presidential election season began. professionnels), introduced by then-president Other movements have emerged over the past five Hollande’s labor minister, Myriam El Khomri years in opposition to the political establishment in and better known by supporters and opponents France. Various movements of entrepreneurs referred alike as the Loi El Khomri (El Khomri Law). In to as “the pigeons” objected to the amount of taxes Paris’s central square, the Place de la République, levied against businesses in France during the first thousands of young people started gathering and two years of the Hollande presidency. Opposition to protesting throughout the night against the bill, in a the transfer of an airport from Nantes to a nearby movement that would be soon called Nuit Debout suburb, Notre-Dame-des-Landes, in order to ease or (“Rise Up at Night”).4 Every night protesters the traffic created significant turmoil, with protesters stayed awake, discussing and debating visions of occupying the planned construction site. No public an alternative society and proposals for a better official was willing to take responsibility to evacuate future in a movement that has been compared to the protesters for fear of a collateral accident that the Occupy Wall Street movement in the United could doom the project for good. Ramadan - Shawwal 1438 - June - July 2017 Ramadan - Shawwal 1438 - June - July 2017 6 Populism Populism itself has never been theorized in modern controversial assertions by her famously anti-Semitic French history as much as it has been understood as and Holocaust-denying father, Jean-Marie Le Pen.6 existing on a continuum of nationalism. These two The rise in popularity of the FN soon became the concepts, populism and nationalism, are closely main political debate, and the mainstream parties (on linked in French history, and the Front National is both the left and the right) blamed each other for the the only party that claims them as values of its core FN’s rise in the polls and the public debate. identity. Founded in 1972, the FN is one of the oldest While a pro-European centrist, Emmanuel Macron, contemporary populist parties in the West.5 For would go on to defeat Le Pen and assume the decades, the ideas presented by Jean-Marie Le Pen French presidency, the 2017 election has effectively (the far-right founder of the FN) were considered to reshaped the political landscape for the populist be populist. Proposals included reducing the number Front National and its leader, Marine Le Pen. It of immigrants, restricting the spread and practice presented, and will continue to present, a clear of Islam in France, leaving the European Union, choice: it places the FN in a position to be the clear and similar issues.