H-France Review Vol. 2 (May 2002), No. 39
Edward G. DeClair, Politics on the Fringe: The People, Policies, and Organization of the French National Front. Durham: Duke University
Press, 1999. xiv + 261 pp. Appendices, notes, bibliography, and
index. $49.95 US (cl). ISBN 0-8223-2237-4. $17.95 US (pb). ISBN 0-8223-
2139-4.
Review by Samuel H. Goodfellow, Westminster College.
After reading this book, one can begin to appreciate why the leaders
of the European Union are so terrified of Joerg Haider in Austria and
the European far right. DeClair identifies Jean-Marie Le Pen's Front
National as the only consistently dynamic political party in France
over the past ten years. In a Europe riddled with corruption, from
Helmut Kohl's misuse of campaign funds to the pathetic exile of former
Italian prime minister Bettino Craxi, the Social Democratic and
Christian Democratic movements seem, well, old. By default, the new
far right parties across Europe are rushing to fill the eroding vacuum
with their brio of anti-immigration, anti-European Union, and
traditional far right enthusiasms. Politics on the Fringe is a well-
researched overview of the development of the Front National from the
chaotic milieu of the marginalized and fractious far right in 1972 into
a "solidly anchored, mass-based political party" (p. 212). Based on
interviews with twenty-nine party leaders from the National Assembly
and the Front's political bureau, DeClair effectively blends their
views with political manifestos, secondary sources, and contemporary
analysis in order to get inside the party.
By the early 1970s the French far right appeared to be moribund in
the face of the ascendant left. The Front National evolved out of the
disparate and often bitterly antagonistic factions of royalists, neo-
fascists, embittered Algerian activists, Poujadists, and right-wing
Catholics. Jean-Marie Le Pen's career epitomizes the Front's tangled
roots. A veteran of Algeria, Le Pen was elected in 1956 to the
national Assembly under the Poujadist banner. In 1965, he ran the
presidential campaign of Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour, defense lawyer
of Algerie Française paramilitary leaders and the founder of the
extreme right Rassemblement National. Each of these events--the
abortive coup in Algeria, Poujadism, and Tixier-Vignancourt's campaign--
were ephemeral, but they express a durability of French far right
sensibilities stretching from the late nineteenth century to the
present.
In October 1972, the various factions of the otherwise fractured far
right came together as the Front National in order to compete in
elections. Jean-Marie Le Pen received the nod as the leader because of
his extensive background and experience. This choice proved lasting
and effective for the Front, which has consistently cited leadership as
one of the party's chief assets. Le Pen has, until his recent assault
on Madame Peulvast and the division of the party, thoroughly dominated
the Front, dictating its platform and its organizational structure.
DeClair stresses that the formation of the Front marked a decisive
first step towards the creation of what would become, against all
expectation, the third largest party in France.
Founding a party, of course, is not the same thing as lasting success.
Indeed, in 1981 Simone Veil, among others, declared the death of the
French Right. A scant three years later, however, the prospects looked
completely different after the Front garnered 12.34% of the vote in the
European Parliament election. In the 1986 legislative elections, the
Front continued its momentum with 9.7% of the vote and 35 seats in the
National Assembly--courtesy of the newly instituted proportional system
instead of the old two round system. Capping off the robust rise in
the 1980s was Le Pen's 14.4% in the 1988 presidential election. Into
the 1990s the Front maintained a consistent and, as DeClair emphasizes,
loyal voting constituency, but it could never surmount the 15%
barrier.
If the 1980s saw the Front's breakthrough, the 1990s were about the
party's endurance, which DeClair argues is critical for a party to be
ranked as a permanent fixture. Despite the major obstacle of the
reimposition in 1986 of the two round voting system, the Front has
remained effective by plugging its role as an outsider (mains propres
et tête haute), its new-found anti-European Union stance (Non
Maastricht), and its concern for jobs (droit au travail). In the
last elections, the Front still held a critical position as the third
largest party in determining the composition of the National Assembly.
One of the key points that DeClair makes about the Front National, and
perhaps by implication the far right in Europe, is that the leadership
cadre is divided into factions, the founders, the notables, and the new
recruits, which have different orientations and which, accordingly,
appeal to different constituencies. The founders, best represented by
Le Pen himself, grew up in the post-World War II extreme right milieu
and were influenced by the Algerian crisis. This group has far greater
continuities with the pre-war French fascist sensibility than the
others. The second group, the notables, tends to be better educated
and less ideologically motivated, and, for the most part, joined the
party after the initial successes of the 1980s. The founders brought
them in to provide legitimacy in local elections, in return for which
the notables expected to revive moribund political careers. Most
radical of all are the new recruits who are on average twenty years
younger than the other factions. Attracted to the party for purely
ideological reasons, the new recruits seek action and immediate
political gratification. These factions effectively link the founding
generation with the younger generation, thereby insuring some
continuity, and they broadened the ideological appeal of the Front
through the inclusion of the notables.
Who then has supported the Front National? Most striking is the
balance across class and age, although with slightly more men than
women, with particular success among shopkeepers, craftsmen, and
workers. The Front has become a true mass party insofar as it draws
from all constituencies. This, in DeClair's view, signifies the unique
evolution of the Front and the far right in general, although he
probably underestimates the diversity of the Croix de Feu and the Parti
Social Francais in the 1930s. From a regional perspective, however, the
Front looks less like a mass party, as one with strongholds in the
eastern half of metropolitan France and little support in the west.
Part of the reason for the Front's broad support stems from the party's
participation in the democratic arena, which, along with the influx of
notables, has had a moderating influence on the party by making it more
accountable.
The strength of this book lies in its dispassionate analysis of a
controversial movement. Moving past frenzied conspiracy theories and
desperate attempts to explain away the Front's support as just a
protest vote, DeClair forces the reader to imagine the Front as a major
political party rather than as a marginal and ephemeral movement.
Unfortunately, the book was finished just before Le Pen received a
sentence for assault and the faction supporting Bruno Megret, including
one of Le Pen's daughters, left the party. At that moment, the Front
looked fully capable of reverting to the chaos of the 1960s. Looks,
however, can be deceptive and this is hardly the first time that Le Pen
has looked like a buffoon (the time when his former wife posed for
Playboy springs to mind) or that the party has wavered in its focus,
only to stage a spectacular rebound. If Le Pen has come up smelling
like roses again in the 2002 presidential elections, it is in large
part because of his personal charisma, the experience of his
organization, and his ability to seduce a new generation of activists—all points raised by DeClair. Le Pen is the only candidate who fills
the emotional need for a reassertion of French identity in the face of
the European Union. He will probably not get a post-presidential
election bounce as Hitler did in 1932, but the Front National has
waited patiently for exactly this scenario where Le Pen reaches the
second round of the presidential elections. DeClair's analysis seems
even more relevant now than in 1999 when his book came out.
Samuel H. Goodfellow
Westminster College
Goodfels@jaynet.wcmo.edu
Copyright © 2002 by the Society for French Historical Studies, all rights reserved. The Society for French Historical Studies permits the electronic distribution for nonprofit educational purposes, provided that full and accurate credit is given to the author, the date of publication, and its location on the H-France website. No republication or distribution by print media will be permitted without permission. For any other proposed uses, contact the Editor-in-Chief of H-France.
H-France Review Vol. 2 (May 2002), No. 39
ISSN 1553-9172
