This latest effort at rebranding comes at a pivotal moment for the party, which after decades on the fringes of French politics managed to push its way to electoral relevance, only to suffer a crushing second-round defeat to centrist Emmanuel Macron in last year’s presidential election. Now, with an eye to next year’s legislative elections, Le Pen is hoping a new name will ready the party to reclaim the the national spotlight. In this way, Bannon’s presence at the congress was important—his success helping get President Trump’s “America First” policy vision into the White House, paired with his recent European tour, brought the conference vast media attention. But it also exposed numerous contradictions. Though Bannon served in the White House, he was never really a mainstream political figure, and his ouster from both the government and Breitbart News have marginalized him even more. What’s more, his particular brand of populist nationalism makes him more akin to the FN’s founder than to its current leader. This irony was noted by Jean-Marie Le Pen himself, who said that Bannon’s presence was “not exactly the definition of the de-demonization” the FN has been seeking. [...]
Apart from the party’s plan to ditch its support for leaving the eurozone (a policy championed by the FN’s since-departed deputy, Florian Philippot), the overall agenda and ethos of the party remains almost entirely consistent. Le Pen made this clear in her address to party members Sunday when she said the FN’s far-right positions on immigration, globalization, and the European Union would stay intact. She practically had to do this. “Its core base is attracted to the party because of its uncompromising rebuttal to legal immigration, the multicultural society, and globalism,” Jean-Yves Camus, an expert on France’s far right, told me. “It’s been that way since 1972.”
So if the party’s so-called rebranding offers no real change, why does the brand survive? David Lees, a Warwick University researcher focusing on French politics, told me that more than French voters, it’s the attention that gives Le Pen the power she has. “It’s precisely because the media, and indeed the wider population in France and around the world, are interested in how the extreme right is doing—and that gives them a sense of credibility,” he said, adding: “She needs to do something now to keep momentum going to the next presidential election, which is what she’s really always been targeting.” It is also the case that the FN has a substantial if limited base of support—it won about a third of the votes in the 2017 elections, nearly doubling the FN’s next best showing in 2002 elections.
No comments:
Post a Comment