THE FRENCH NATIONAL FRONT

This research report traces the recent development and analyzes the leadership, ideological appeal, bases of support, program and tactics of the National Front, the leading French political party on the extreme right. Since the mid 1980's, the National Front has emerged as a potent force in French politics. It does not command the support of more than a significant minority of French voters; however, it has had an impact on French political discourse which extends beyond its limited electoral victories. Its successes to date are largely attributable to its ability to organize a mass political movement which taps into deep anxieties and dissatisfactions of certain segments of the French body politic and to market to a broader constituency its essentially neo fascist message.

The Rise of the National Front as a Political Force in France

The National Front was founded in 1972 by the Ordre Nouveau, whose members had strong links with the Vichy period and the ultra nationalistic OAS. Until it came out of the political wilderness in 1984, the party was one of a number of tiny extremist right wing sects. Jean Marie Le Pen has been its leader since 1972. When he was a university student, Le Pen, now 67, gained a reputation as a street brawler. He has been convicted twice, once in 1965 for selling records of Nazi martial music. He served as a paratroop officer and propagandist in Indochina and in Algeria where he was reportedly involved in torture (sin

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many industrial areas in the north. The National Front is especially strong in Dreux, an industrial suburb of Paris, where its candidate to the National Assembly, won 61.3 percent of the vote in 1989. The National Front would stop all illegal immigration, deny social benefits to legal immigrants, deport all those who have been convicted of a crime or who are unemployed and reopen all post 1974 naturalizations. Brechon and Mitra say that "typical National Front voters are poor whites of lower middle class origin who have ambitions for upward mobility but feel threatened by immigration" (Brechon, 1992, p. 70). The xenophobic aspects of the National Front's program are linked to its opposition to the status quo. In the 1980's and 1990's, "the system and the Establishment faced a crisis of credibility" (Weber, 1994, p. 426). Le Pen said that he was merely saying out loud what many others in France thought. He blamed the existing power structure and ruling oligarchy for failing to solve a long list of social problems, including decaying schools and public services, sexual excesses and the AIDS epidemic, crime and high taxes which he claimed were due not only to the corrupting effects of foreigners but also to the inattention of the

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