FROM THE FRONT NATIONAL TO THE RASSEMBLEMENT NATIONAL Une affaire de famille

Abstract

In recent decades, far-right political movements – which tend to promote xenophobic and racist views towards migrants and refugees alike while portraying themselves as the voice of the working classes – have become prominent in several western societies. Those political movements are also present in France, where the Rassemblement National (RN) – a far-right party established in 1972 under the name of Front National (FN) – has been employing populist rhetoric to increase its political support and electoral base. The RN’s current leader, Marine Le Pen, has sought to de-demonize the RN. She is working to portray her party as more mainstream than a far-right fringe party, which is perceived to be homophobic, anti-Semitic, xenophobic and racist due to her father’s controversial and polarizing legacy as the RN’s former leader and co-founder. In 2015, she even dismissed her father from the RN in part for his explicit anti-Semitic and racist comments, and changed the party’s name from the FN to the RN in 2018. As part of her de-demonization strategy, MLP has continued to appropriate certain rhetorical elements employed by left-wing and mainstream political parties in addition to making her party seem more inclusive vis-à-vis with voters and political activists, who are not traditionally associated with France’s far-right. Like several other politicians – who also employ populist rhetoric - her supporters have also created a cult of personality around her leadership style, name, and public image. Some of her supporters have even compared her to Joan of Arc, or have called themselves “Marinistes.” However, MLP nowadays uses political discourse and imagery linked to Christian values, secularism, LGBTI rights and feminism as veils to make her party’s xenophobic, racist, anti-Semitic and Islamophobic rhetoric more ambiguous and less explicit. In three chapters, this paper analyses the following selected three criteria to see how they have evolved, or remained the same, within the RN: Xenophobia, which refers to the evolution of nativist ideology and anti-immigration sentiments within the RN; Personalism, which refers to the way the leader of the FN/RN, is portrayed and portrays him/herself; and Moralism, which refers to values and morals, such as secularism, emphasized by MLP during her political campaigns. The fourth chapter then briefly juxtaposes the RN's rise within French politics with the recent rise of other political movements – with populist tendencies – throughout several countries, including the United States and Brazil. Lastly, this paper’s main conclusion looks at to what extent has the RN’s de-demonization strategy succeeded in helping the party become an influential player in French politics, and whether that strategy has created challenges for the party moving forward. Keywords: France, far-right, immigration, xenophobia, Islamophobia, cult of personality, secularism, populism, and de-demonization.