France: A Case Study of the Global Rise of the Alt-Right Andrew Jacoby, ’24

France: A Case Study of the Global Rise of the Alt-Right

Andrew Jacoby, ’24

Globally, the far-right nationalist movement has experienced a massive uptick in populist support and, as a result, political power. Nationalistic, far-right movements have grown from a relatively insignificant part of the political spectrum to major powerhouses.1 This growth can be directly correlated to economic downturns and accompanying periods of social unrest. France is a perfect case study, as economic and social instabilities have caused a political shift from a socially progressive democracy, with nearly universal distrust of farright parties as potentially too akin to the Nazism of World War II, to the slow embrace of far-right ideologies and parties socially and politically over its past few election cycles.2

In France, the leading party representing these alt-right ideas is the National Rally party (Rassemblement National - RA), formerly known as the National Front (le Front National - FN).3 The RA was founded in 1972 by Jean-Marie Le Pen, French politician Marine Le Pen’s father.4 Initially, it was not very successful. The RA had no significant election results for more than a decade after its founding. However, as nationalism in France rose in the 1980s, so did the RA’s power.5 Its platform is based on immigration restrictions, anti-communism, the reduction of governmental power, and the elimination of social services. The xenophobic part of its platform became more popularly appealing as France’s economic woes began to emerge in the mid-2000s. Both due to the increased popularity of the movement and significant election reforms, RA was slowly able to gain seats in the French parliament. The RA’s number of seats was still relatively small in its first few decades. However, the momentum it had built up in the 1980s continued into the 1990s and early 2000s, reflecting a growing acceptance of far-right ideology.6

In 2002, Jean-Marie Le Pen became the first RA candidate to qualify for the second round of voting in the French presidential election.7 Unlike the United States where there are primary elections followed by a final election, in France, all candidates run at the same time, with a second election to decide between the top two candidates if no candidate achieved over 50% in the initial round of elections.8 While the RA making it to the final round of the election showed its increasing power, it also aroused a strong opposition movement that temporarily reduced the party’s power. However, the 2008 global market crash re-invigorated the party’s success, which has grown exponentially (along with other expressions of alt-right nationalism on a global level)

in the years since this crash. In the elections of 2008 and 2009, the RA was able to manipulate that crisis to their benefit, winning 24% of the vote.9 Since then, their power has continued to grow. In 2017, Marine Le Pen won 33% of the presidential vote in the final runoff election, the highest percentage RA had achieved up to that point. However, that record was beaten most recently in the 2022 election, where Marine Le Pen won 41% of the vote.10 The comparison between the 2017 and 2022 election maps is striking: in 2017, Le Pen only won 2 districts in the French election, but this year, she won 25 districts. That secures her party a strong position for the parliamentary election in June, which would be particularly remarkable as no far-right party has held a substantial number of seats in the French parliament since World War II.11 Current conditions in France These developments in a country are particularly conducive to the rise of extremist, nationalist, and far-right that traditionally has been incredibly liberal, beg a consequential question: why did France take a turn to the far-right? While this may seem like parties. a straightforward question, it is significantly more complicated. People often turn to political extremes during economic crises.12 Current conditions in France are particularly conducive to the rise of extremist, nationalist, and far-right parties.13 This is because France never fully recovered from the 2008 global market crisis. Its GDP never returned to its peak, which was right before the 2008 recession.14 France’s economy tanked once again during the pandemic, and has not adequately recovered from this blow either. The French unemployment rate is also relatively high, at 7.4%,15 when compared to the global average of 6.5%.16 While this rate is down from its 2015 rate of 10.4%, today’s high levels of unemployment still yield political unrest. France is also facing inflation rates that are quadruple what they were in 2021, at around 4.8%.17 With rising costs, especially in the energy sector, many French citizens increasingly feel like they are facing pervasive economic hardships. Research shows that when faced with economic hardships people often turn to the extremes.18 Economic hardship can then lead to xenophobia, especially when politicians use immigration as a scapegoat for the country’s economic problems.19 Immigrants only make up about 9.1% of France’s population. However, when surveyed, the French public believes, on average, that immigrants make up approximately 18.1% of their population.20 This same survey demonstrated that 38% of the French population believes that immigrants from outside of the EU are a problem for France; furthermore, 61% of the French population believes that immigration from Muslim countries should be stopped.21 What makes Le Pen so attractive to some French people right now, is her economic policy. During her most recent campaign, she used that policy to rebuild her image for this election cycle and tout her practicality. Historically, however, both Le Pen’s party and her campaigns have touted her more regressive social beliefs.22 In previous

years, she relied on anti-immigration, Islamophobic, and anti-EU positions. However, in her campaigning this year, she focused more on using the public’s anger over inflation rates, rising energy prices, and the overall cost of living. She planned to combat these problems by lowering taxes on energy bills. Another aspect of her plan involves allowing citizens to bypass lawmakers and pass laws themselves once they have achieved 500,000 signatures. Apart from these few economic and legislative components, large parts of her platform remained the same. Le Pen still wants to strictly control immigration and ‘stop uncontrolled Islamist ideologies.’ For example, along with her anti-Islam policy, she wants to ban Muslim headscarves in public spaces as she views them as “an Islamist uniform”23 which she believes serves as an ideological, religious symbol that is antithetical to “French culture.”

The rise of the far-right nationalist political platforms around the world share many of the above-named ideologies with France. Repeatedly, over history, nationalist parties gain strength during times of economic struggles.24 As people look for economic relief and government social policies that will help them, some people believe that more isolationist and xenophobic stances will help address their problems.25 These beliefs are often fed by politicians pushing anti-immigration platforms. As Le Pen learned with her platform over several runs for office, formal political platforms still have more success bringing moderate constituents into their party when they overtly focus on economic recovery rather than directly focusing on xenophobic positions. However, this change in primary focus does not negate the back-end regressive, often xenophobic, and isolationist policies, which continue as a part of their formal platforms.26 As a result, for many people, in many countries, the principles of social conservatism and economic conservatism can become intertwined. Thus, the current economic crises guide parties to directly focus more overt energy on economic recovery, a widely popular and acceptable platform, that allows struggling voters to at best excuse and at worst begin to adopt their far-right messaging.27 While the relationship between economic struggle, bias, and racism is very complex, it is important to recognize as it is a driving force behind the rising tide of right-wing nationalist movements in France and around the world.

round-presidential-election-work 9 Robinson 10 Berlinger, Joshua, and Ataman, Joseph, “French election results: Emmanuel Macron wins”, 25 April 2022, https://www.cnn. com/2022/04/24/europe/french-election-results-macron-le-penintl/index.html, Accessed 29 April 2022 11 Ganley, Elaine, “Marine Le Pen’s far-right vision: Retooling France at home, abroad”, USA Today, 23 April 2022, https:// www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2022/04/23/marine-le-penvision-france-far-right-vision/7422392001/, Accessed 29 April 2022, 12 Robinson 13 Alsaafin, Linah, “What is behind the rise of the far right in France?”, Al Jazeera, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/4/7/ what-is-behind-the-rise-of-the-far-right-in-france, Accessed 29 April 2022 14 Robinson. 15 “France Unemployment RATE2022 Data - 2023 Forecast - 1975-2021 Historical - Calendar”, France Unemployment Rate - 2022 Data - 2023 Forecast - 1975-2021 Historical - Calendar, https://tradingeconomics.com/france/unemployment-rate 16 “Unemployment by Country 2022”, Unemployment by Country 2022, https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/ unemployment-by-country 17 Horobin, William, “French Inflation Jumps More Than Expected to Hit New Record”, Bloomberg, 31 March 2022, https:// www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-31/french-inflationjumps-more-than-expected-reaching-fresh-record. Accessed 29 April 2022 18 Robinson. 19 Alsaafin. 20 Robinson. 21 Robinson. 22 Ganley. 23 Ganley. 24 Ray. 25 Alsaarin. 26 Ganley. 27 Alsaarin.

1 Nova Robinson, “The Rise of Neo-Nationalism and the Front National in France”, Edited by Allie Schiele, Seattle University Undergraduate Research Journal, vol. 4, no. 14, 2020, pp. 98118, https://scholarworks.seattleu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1136&context=suurj 2 Robinson 3 Robinson 4 Michael Ray, “Marine Le Pen | Biography, Policies, Party, Father, & Facts”, Encyclopedia Britannica, 24 April 2022, https:// www.britannica.com/biography/Marine-Le-Pen, Accessed 29 April 2022 5 Robinson 6 Robinson 7 Ray 8 McNicoll, Tracy, “Explainer: How Does France’s Two-Round Presidential Election Work?”, France 24, https://amp.france24. com/en/france/20220211-explainer-how-does-france-s-two-