How to stay populist? The Front National and the changing French party system

Abstract

The main aim of this contribution is to assess the relevance of the notion of ‘exclusionary populism’ for the characterisation of the Front National (FN) in France. Since its emergence in the 1970s, several categories or notions have been applied to this political party. Once considered as the resurgence of a traditional extreme right, it has since been classified as a case of a new European right-wing extremism, or as one of the neo-populist parties that obtained electoral successes in the 1990s. The recent evolution of the party has also been described as a sort of ‘normalisation’. Is therefore ‘exclusionary populism’ still a category that can grasp the evolution of the party, as well as its present position in the French party system? To answer this question, this article examines political discourses and various electoral platforms of the Front National to gather some empirical evidence. The argument is twofold: The Front National, despite its ‘dédiabolisation’ strategy, is still a classic populist party characterised by exclusionary populism and a sort of ‘catch-all populism’; its evolution is, however, dependent on the recent evolution of the French party system.