The Eu: An Oasis Of Opportunity For The Front National?

Having arguably muted the impact of the Front National’s 24 MEPs, one could be forgiven for thinking that the European un ion (EU) once again represents an oasis of opportunity for the party. At first glance, on-going crises such as difficulties in the Eurozone, the vast increase in the number of refugees arriving on Europe’s borders, Brexit and the unprecedented anti-TTIP movement, which have not only all conflated at more or less the same time, but which are also all calling into question the foundational principles of the European Union, should in theory lend credence to FN discourse and thus contribute to improved electoral results for France’s leading Eurosceptic force. First, Marine Le Pen and the FN hierarchy’s continued focus on themes such an #145undemocratic’ European Union which has leeched sovereignty from Paris (as well as other capitals), rather than traditional arguments such as national identity, will only add weight to their claim that “la dédiabolisation du parti est achevée, nous constituons désormais une réelle alternative politique.” Secondly, resistance towards the EU’s resettlement quota for refugees not only supports the aforementioned point regarding an overbearing Brussels, but also ensures the question of national identity and immigration (and more recently laïcité), for long a cornerstone of FN rhetoric, is not neglected in its entirety. However, although more negative headlines emanating from Brussels in the last few months than positive ones should be good news for the FN, it remains to be seen exactly how the party can translate problems within the EU into meaningful success in the forthcoming regional elections.

Although much has been written, debated and re-written over the exact nature and extent of the de-radicalisation of the FN under Marine Le Pen since becoming first her father’s campaign manager for the 2007 Presidential election, and subsequently party leader in 2011, one theme which has tended to lead to consensus, and which Gilles Ivaldi has recently demonstrated, is that, at the expense of its cultural agenda, the FN has recently begun to assign significantly greater programmatic importance to economic issues by choosing to focus more on topics such as the Euro, employment and public debt. Although the dataset used only goes up to 2012 and also whether or not economic diversification is in itself enough to de-toxify the image of a party is still highly contentious, what is undeniable is that the Eurozone crisis, and in particular the EU’s handling of it, has at least provided the FN with ample opportunity to further diversify and orientate its policy towards the mainstream with added emphasis on economic issues. Despite the fact that criticisms of the Euro have been part of FN doctrine since the in 1990s, calls to #145take France out of the Eurozone’ in order to ‘recover our monetary sovereignty’ have become more prominent in the discourse of both leaders and party manifestos.

On top of this, at a time when French citizens’ trust in the EU is at 42%, criticism of the EU’s management of the Eurozone and Greek bailout crises should not only be seen as a potential vote winner through creating balanced and thus more moderate party image, but also by means of galvanising the Euroscepticism in France to ensure that the momentum generated in May 2014 carries through to December’s regional elections. However, one caveat remains. Although polls suggest that unemployment and taxes are the two themes which are set to impact the most on how people choose to vote in December (and two themes included in Ivaldi’s argument), it could be argued that Marine Le Pen’s increasingly aggressive stance on Eurozone membership remains too polarising a factor for the large majority of French people and 82% of LR sympathisers who do not see leaving the euro as a positive step forward for France her comparison of the Eurozone in July to an “abbatoir” and “une secte où on meurt à petit feu” cases in point.

The migrant crisis is another example of the difficulties associated with capitalising on problems with the European Union, however this time, it is arguably not the strategy of the FN which is to blame, rather the priorities of the electorate. As already suggested, the FN criticism is as follows: attack the EU for its mandatory allocation of refugees at the same time as warning on the campaign trail of “submersion migratoire” and “terrorisme islamiste”. With recent polls suggesting that a majority of French people oppose the welcoming of migrants, the fact that the FN is campaigning on the influx of refugees and how they pose a threat to the traditional ways of life and identities all across France should not come as too much of a surprise. Nevertheless, hostility towards the millions of refugees predicted to arrive in Europe, it seems, has not (at least up until this weekend’s attacks on Paris and the revelation that one of the terrorists had potentially arrived in Europe posing as a refugee) translated into a key priority for voters, even taking into account the fact that voters place more of an emphasis on local issues during regional elections. Immigration and the migrant crisis in Europe sit in 5th and 10th place respectively on the list of priorities for all voters taken together the terrorist threat a distant 14th. Even more troublesome for the FN is that these issues are only 6th, 10th and 12th for LR/UDI/MODEM voters, a key constituency for the FN if the party is going to succeed in the second round of voting which has long acted as a glass ceiling to power.

In sum, on paper, troubles at the heart of the European Union should benefit the Front National. Slow and uncertain growth in France and the Eurozone coupled with the refugee crisis play right into the hands of the FN and represent a significant opportunity to turn popular malaise for the EU into votes. However, as highlighted, actually doing that is not as simple as it looks. Moreover, the stakes are high. Sceptic-of-FN-success-in-chief, James Shields, argues that Marine Le Pen clearly recognises the acute need for a record in office to demonstrate its governing competence going into 2017. Given that, he adds, “in terms of electoral representation at the various levels of governance in France, the FN still barely exists,” the need to succeed and win control of a region in December is ever more crucial. With the added emphasis on the refugee crisis and ‘Islamism’ which will likely resume when the electoral campaigns restart – even on the morning after the attacks Marine Le Pen was quietly criticising Schengen – whether the FN will be able to capitalise on the tragedy remains to be seen. Indeed, will voters remember it was the FN who campaigned against the tightening of surveillance in the Loi Relative au Renseignement passed after Charlie Hebdo? Of course, in the words of Tim Bale, “forecasting the future is a mug’s game.”

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