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The voters of the FN under Jean-Marie Le Pen and Marine Le Pen: Continuity or change?

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French Politics Aims and scope

Abstract

The French National Front (FN), currently one of the most successful radical right-wing parties at the electoral booth in Western Europe, has more than doubled its vote share from around 10 per cent in the late 2000s, or the final years of Jean-Marie Le Pen’s presidency, to around 15–25 per cent in the 2010s after Marine Le Pen has taken over the leadership of the party. Aiming to understand the reasons for this increase in the party’s vote and possible differences in the FN voter between Le Pen father and Le Pen daughter, we compare the individual characteristics of the FN voters, as well as the structural conditions in an individual’s surrounding that might influence why somebody votes FN in 2007 and 2012. Except for the fact that the FN electorate became younger in 2012, the core characteristics of the FN voter (for example, low education, dissatisfaction with democracy in France and a working class background) have remained constant. However, what has changed in 2012 is that the FN was more successful in attracting a higher proportion of voters that belong to the socio-demographic strata traditionally, overrepresented within its electorate.

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Notes

  1. Jean-Marie Le Pen is often credited with creating the Front National. In reality, the party was created by several individuals including François Brigneau, François Duprat, Alain Robert and Jean-Marie Le Pen (DeClair, 1999, p. 57).

  2. The years 1998 and 1999 were characterized by internal struggles between Jean-Marie Le Pen and his de facto Number 2, Bruno Mégret. These struggles, which tackled leadership issues and the strategic orientation of the FN, and which culminated in the party’s national council in December 1998, led to the exclusion of Bruno Mégret. Mégret took many former FN members with him and formed a breakaway party, the National Republican Movement. At the 1999, European Elections, the two parties split the vote; the FN won a meagre 5.7 per cent, whereas Mégret’s party attracted 3.3 per cent (Berezin, 2007, p. 137).

  3. For example, for the past 40 years the Front has tried to attract voters through slogans such as: ‘A million unemployed is a million immigrants too many! France and the French First’ (Bariller and Timmermans, 1993, p. 36).

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  1. School of Political Studies, 120 University of Ottawa, K1N 6N5, ON, Canada

    Daniel Stockemer & Abdelkarim Amengay

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  1. Daniel Stockemer
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Correspondence to Daniel Stockemer.

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Stockemer, D., Amengay, A. The voters of the FN under Jean-Marie Le Pen and Marine Le Pen: Continuity or change?. Fr Polit 13, 370–390 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1057/fp.2015.16

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