The National Front is dead. The perennial bogeyman of the French political scene officially ceased to exist on June 1, 2018, when the party voted 80 percent to rebrand itself Rassemblement national (National Rally). The move came after months of brainstorming aimed at stopping the massive hemorrhage of sympathizers and voters that followed Marine Le Pen’s disastrous presidential debate on May 3, 2017, and the electoral underperformance that ensued. Up until then, the party founded in 1972 by her father Jean-Marie Le Pen and a few far-right groupuscules had seemed on an irresistible ascent.
The National Rally (French: Rassemblement national, RN), formerly known as the National Front (French: Front national, pronounced [fʁɔ̃ na.sjɔ.nal]; FN) until June 2018, is a right-wing populist and nationalist political party in France. As Marine Le Pen, who heads France’s far-right National Front (FN), tries to form a eurosceptic group in Brussels with other like-minded political movements, FRANCE 24 takes a look at her party. Jungle ki sardi 51 story comic.
Under his daughter’s stewardship, it had sailed downwind election after election and scored record highs. By December 2015, the National Front could rightfully campaign as the “first party of France” and secure 40 percent of the votes in its northern and southern strongholds after beating every other party in three rounds of midterm elections. All bets were off for the 2017 presidential race. And then the bubble popped. A young up-and-coming new player, Emmanuel Macron, disrupted the entire political scene with his trademark movement “En Marche!” Running a campaign fuelled by Tupperware parties, evangelizing mega-rallies, focus groups and big data analysis, he made optimism hip again and his opponents look old school. Key items from the National Front’s political platform are now embraced by a majority of the population and copied by mainstream political parties.
According to a January 2018 opinion, 56 percent of the French are against the centuries-old tradition of jus solis, the acquisition of French citizenship at 18 for children born in France from foreign nationals. Fifty-seven percent are against the right to family reunion for non-European legal immigrants. And a February 2018 survey showed that 63 percent of the French think that “there are too many immigrants in France,” a remarkably high, and remarkably stable, number over recent years. In early June, the center-right Republican party distributed 1.5 million leaflets stamped “ Pour que la France reste la France” (“For a France that remains France”), a slogan lifted from Marine Le Pen’s speeches.
The scare tactics that served as arguments in the pamphlet—unprecedented numbers of immigrants, increasing insecurity, and the terrorist threat—could have been signed “FN” as well. In the meantime, on the ground, the National Front already rules in a few cities. Arthur Goldhammer In opinion poll after opinion poll, National Front voters place “immigration” and “security” at the very top of their list of priorities. One can call it “cultural insecurity,” or “fear of change,” or more simply “racism,” but at the core, it’s the presence of North African immigrants and their families that bothers National Front’s voters, not unemployment, nor the lack of economic opportunities.