The mainstreaming of the far and extreme right in the French presidential election
This article was first published in the ECPR E-Extreme newletter (March 22 # Volume 23, №1) — thanks to Fred Paxton and Patricia Rodi!
As the French presidential election looms, the far right is in the spotlight, again. Yet, it would be wrong to assume the context has not dramatically evolved. It appears that we have reached a new stage in the mainstreaming of far-right politics in France and that the borders between the mainstream, far and even extreme right are increasingly porous and fuzzy. While it is too early to tell how the far and extreme right will fare in the election — it is indeed possible that the crowded field may lead to a split in the vote and to the whole family missing out on the second round — what is clear is that their pet issues have already become further normalised in the lead up. Most strikingly perhaps, Valérie Pécresse, the Républicains candidate, recently gave credence to the great replacement theory, trying to appear tough on immigration, as if this was a legitimate grievance of ‘the people’, and that pandering to fascist conspiracy theories was a popular demand. She backtracked when faced with a backlash, albeit a rather tame one considering how extreme such theories are, but another step had been taken. Of course, Pécresse is not solely responsible for this situation, nor is the centre right, despite Nicolas Sarkozy having been a precursor and key actor in shaping the current reactionary context. The Macron government has an incredibly poor record when it comes to countering far right politics and discourse. Attacks on racialised Muslim communities in France have gone hand in hand with the whipping up of moral panics about Islamo-leftism, wokeness and Critical Race Theory. Crucially, this is not just limited to discourse and the rightward move has had some very serious practical circumstances as more stringent anti-terrorism laws have been passed to counter ‘Islamist separatism’. On the right, Laurent Wauquiez, the president of the Regional Council of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, went as far as removing some funding from the University of Grenoble accused of ‘wokeism’ for denouncing the Islamophobia of one of their lecturers.
This process of normalisation cannot be discussed without mentioning Eric Zemmour, the new kid on the block who is at the same an old dog of the media establishment in France. Zemmour loves to paint himself, and see himself painted by a broadly compliant mainstream media, as an outsider, as someone who is regularly cancelled for breaking taboos and opposing the elite, even though this could not be further from the truth. Indeed, for decades now, Zemmour has received countless platforms to push some incredibly extreme ideas and politics, which should not have been a surprise given that extreme sexist, racist and homophobic positions were already clearly articulated in his first book Le Premier Sexe (2006). His presence in the mainstream media has not been limited to the right and far right, but he has often been allowed to gain legitimacy on more liberal programmes.
Interestingly, the many defections from the Rassemblement National to Zemmour’s Reconquête party suggest that the Le Pens’ strategy of de-demonisation was always only superficial within the party. Once a more extreme alternative appeared in a context where far right ideas have become increasingly mainstream, many of those who had been biding their time jumped ship. While Marine Le Pen has somewhat proved the victim of her own success, it would be a mistake to give her sole responsibility in the mainstreaming process. In fact, as Katy Brown, Aaron Winter and I explored in an attempt to conceptualise the process of mainstreaming, it is not only mistaken but dangerous to ignore the central role played by the mainstream itself in the process. No matter how skilful the far right may be, its move to the mainstream of politics can only take place if it is allowed to and if its presence or ideas are normalised in our public discourse. This means that actors who have a higher ability to set the agenda, such as the mainstream media, politicians and even academics to an extent, have a particular responsibility in either resisting, accepting or enabling these ideas. As such, it is crucial to understand the mainstreaming process as a top-down one rather than bottom up, as the use of populism may have suggested at times.
This leads us to what is perhaps the more contentious lesson which we have failed to learn as a society when it comes to understanding the mainstreaming of the far right. Far from being antithetical to our current system, it is becoming increasingly clear that far right politics can in fact be adopted and assimilated into the workings of liberal democracies. As Aaron Winter and I discussed at length in Reactionary Democracy, this should not have come as a surprise and has only been possible because of the mythology which has not only simplistically linked existing liberalism with progress, but also placed liberal democracies, in and of themselves, as a bulwark against the far right. This short-sightedness has meant that we have failed to learn key lessons in history and prevented us from thinking beyond a model that offers as sole alternatives the far right and the status quo, both of which exclude many unhappy with the current circumstances, concerned with the multitude of impending crises and yet unconvinced by the solutions offered by the far right. If anything is to be learnt from the French election at this stage, it is the simple fact that we have still not reconciled ourselves with our responsibility as actors with the power to shape public discourse in the mainstreaming of the far right.
