The French Presidential election: the threat posed by Marine Le Pen

29th January, 2012 by David Christie

The results of the 2002 French Presidential election shocked the world when Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the extreme right-wing Front National, managed to get into the second round.  He was of course then beaten by the moderate conservative Jacques Chirac, but the fact that the French electorate had put a far right candidate in second place represented a highly disturbing development.  In January 2011 Jean-Marie Le Pen handed over leadership of the Front National to his daughter Marine.  With a less aggressive style and sharper political skills than her father, she has been able to cultivate a softer image for the party.  She has dropped the crude anti-Semitic rhetoric, dispensed with the skinhead thugs who used to be present at party rallies, and even claims to support gay marriage.  However, these changes are merely cosmetic.  Beneath this thin façade, there is still the same repugnant racist ideology and bigoted attitude towards minorities.  Despite the attempt to appear respectable, these views sometimes spill out in her public statements: in 2010 she likened Muslims praying outside to the ‘Nazi occupation’.

The opinion polls for the upcoming election show the Socialist candidate Francois Hollande in the lead with the support of 30% of voters, which is ahead of President Sarkozy’s rating of 23.5%.  Marine Le Pen is in third place, with her rating having recently gone up by 3.5 percentage points to 17%.  She has already overtaken the centrist candidate Francois Bayrou (who is on 14%), and if her support continues to rise, she might overtake Sarkozy.  This raises the horrifying prospect that, like her father ten years ago, she will get into the second round of the election.

So why is Le Pen’s support rising?  Her message of restoring French pride, which involves policies of protectionism, Euroscepticism and hostility to immigration, resonates with certain sections of the French public at a time of economic uncertainty, high unemployment, the Eurozone crisis and the loss of France’s triple-A credit rating.  Her claim that she will re-industrialise the French economy and create jobs could also be attracting some working-class voters who would previously have considered themselves to be on the left.

If Le Pen does manage to get through to the second round of the election, she is unlikely to win it.  However, the event of her getting into the second round would still cause much embarrassment and shame for France, as well as bolstering the Front National’s belief that they are moving away from the fringes and becoming a force to be reckoned with.  It could also give encouragement to other extreme right-wing movements.  Just like in the 1930s, economic misery could have the effect of generating support for fascism in Europe.  Whether extreme right-wing parties will actually come to power could ultimately depend on whether the continent manages to pull itself back from the edge of the economic abyss.  Worryingly, the chances of European leaders achieving a lasting solution to the Eurozone’s woes are still looking shaky.

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