La Dédiabolisation

Martin Michelot was the co-author of a new article La Dédiabolisation analyzing the success of the far-right Front National, its political program, and the impact of the potential success of Front National's leader Marine Le Pen in the French presidential elections.

Martin Michelot was the co-author of a new article La Dédiabolisation analyzing the success of the far-right Front National, its political program, and the impact of the potential success of Front National's leader Marine Le Pen in the French presidential elections. 

At its core, FN is built around a coherent rejection of liberalism, both in economic and cultural terms. The party has always been culturally illiberal, but its new economic outlook is a real evolution from its strongly anti-communist tradition and its support for liberal economic reforms in favor of small businesses. While her father wanted to be a “French Reagan” in the 1980s, Marine Le Pen has embraced a protectionist agenda and Marxist rhetoric. This has also enabled FN to reinforce its opposition to the EU, which is seen as weakening national sovereignty and promoting foreign interests while imposing ultra-liberal economic policies in France.

 What could an FN victory in the presidential elections mean for France and Europe? The implementation of its program would have three implications in the relatively short-term future: a constitutional crisis in France, the end of the European project as we know it, and an uncontrolled increase of the public debt that could potentially lead to more economic instability in Europe.

 One of the keys of FN’s rise to national prominence has been the normalization of its image, an effort to break through the “glass ceiling” that has kept the party from winning major elections. When Marine Le Pen took over after her father’s forty-year reign, the FN had a hard-line anti-immigration, anti-Semitic image. She set out to change that by refocusing on economic issues with a pronounced anti-EU bent. This process, known in French as dédiabolisation (literally “undemonization”), also brought in new faces to shift the party away from her father’s numerous and well-documented excesses. The prized recruit was Florian Philippot, trained at the elite École Nationale d’Administration (ENA) like many other politicians. Philippot flirted with the left in his formative years, but is now Le Pen’s lieutenant and one of the few palatable faces FN can feature in the media.

 Mainstream parties have also dangerously fostered anger and disillusionment among parts of their own electorates by campaigning on illiberal measures and failing to deliver once in power. Their use of illiberal discourses can be explained by their need to appeal to the most radical parts of the electorate in order to win elections. For the mainstream right, it is essential to obtain the support of voters who are particularly sensitive to immigration, tradition, and security issues; for the mainstream left, victory can only be achieved with the help of voters opposed to the liberalization of the French economy. The last two presidents provide striking examples of this strategy: In 2007, Sarkozy ran a campaign focused on identity and the fight against crime, while Hollande won in 2012 after claiming to be “the enemy of the liberal financial world.”

You can read the whole article on Berlin Policy Journal's website here. The article is also available in print in the March/April 2017 edition of the German Internationale Politik magazine.

Martin Michelot
Senior Associate Research Fellow

Expertise: NATO and transatlantic security, European foreign policy and defense, French politics, elections and society, Visegrad Four and Central Europe, EU institutional issues