The Front national under Marine Le Pen: a mainstream political party?

Abstract

The Front national has experienced such an increase in popularity under the leadership since 2011 of Marine Le Pen that some commentators have suggested the FN is now politically mainstream and question the validity of continuing to represent the party as ideologically extreme. This paper argues that although the party remains ideologically extreme, this does not prevent it from forming part of the political mainstream because it is perfectly concomitant with some form of French republicanism, specifically the national republicanism which has become hegemonic in recent decades. To more effectively combat the FN one must both recognise this and at the same time articulate an alternative, much more inclusivist vision of the French Republic, one leaving no space for the vision of the Republic articulated by the FN.

Full text

ORIGINAL ARTICLE
The Front national under Marine Le Pen: a mainstream
political party?
Steve Bastow
1
Published online: 4 December 2017
Macmillan Publishers Ltd., part of Springer Nature 2017
Abstract The Front national has experienced such an increase in popularity under
the leadership since 2011 of Marine Le Pen that some commentators have suggested
the FN is now politically mainstream and question the validity of continuing to
represent the party as ideologically extreme. This paper argues that although the
party remains ideologically extreme, this does not prevent it from forming part of
the political mainstream because it is perfectly concomitant with some form of
French republicanism, specifically the national republicanism which has become
hegemonic in recent decades. To more effectively combat the FN one must both
recognise this and at the same time articulate an alternative, much more inclusivist
vision of the French Republic, one leaving no space for the vision of the Republic
articulated by the FN.
Keywords Front national Marine Le Pen Radical right Republicanism 
Mainstream
Introduction
In 2011, Marine Le Pen (henceforth MLP) was elected leader of the FN, replacing
her father. Just over a year later, on 22 April 2012, she scored 17.9% of the vote in
the French presidential election, coming third in the vote behind Hollande (28.6%)
and Sarkozy (27.2%). This was better than the highest score ever achieved by her
I would like to thank Professor Nick Harrison of Kings College London, my colleague Dr Radu Cinpoes,
and two anonymous reviewers for French Politics for their insightful comments which have informed the
preparation of this article.
&Steve Bastow
S.Bastow@kingston.ac.uk
1
Department of Politics, Kingston University, Penrhyn Road, Kingston KT1 2EE, UK
Fr Polit (2018) 16:19–37
https://doi.org/10.1057/s41253-017-0052-7
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