Rassemblement National

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Rassemblement National
National collection movement
Party logo
Marine Le Pen (2014)
Party leader Marine Le Pen
Deputy Chairman Steeve Briois , Jordan Bardella
speaker Julien Sanchez , Sébastien Chenu , Laurent Jacobelli
Treasurer Wallerand de Saint-Just
founding 5th October 1972
Place of foundation Paris
Headquarters 76-78 rue des Suisses
92000 Nanterre
Youth organization Generation nation
Alignment Nationalism ,
national conservatism ,
right-wing populism ,
right-wing ,
protectionism ,
euroscepticism
Colours) Blue , white , red
National Assembly
6/577
senate
1/348
Number of members 20,000 (2019)
MEPs 2019
21/79
European party Identity and Democracy Party
EP Group Identity and democracy
Website www.rassemblementnational.fr

Rassemblement National ( RN , German  National Collection Movement ; until June 2018: Front National , FN , German  Nationale Front ) is a party in France that is located on the right edge of the political spectrum ; she uses a right-wing populist style and right-wing extremist arguments. The party defines itself as “neither right nor left ” as well as “ patriotic ”, “ populist ” and “ sovereignist ”.

After the parliamentary elections in June 2017 , the rally movement was represented with eight seats in the French National Assembly, now there are six. The party is chaired by Marine Le Pen , who replaced her father Jean-Marie Le Pen at the head of the party in 2011 .

program

"French first"

The Rassemblement National collection movement describes itself as “patriotic” and “national” in the sense of “French identity, tradition and sovereignty”. A central concept of the RN is the préférence nationale , the nationalistically organized preference for the French, according to the motto Les Français d'abord (“French first”, also a book by Jean-Marie Le Pen). For example, French citizens should be better off compared to non-French people when looking for a job and in terms of social benefits. Class contradictions should be overcome through national-social solutions. With the idea of ​​a “socially” understood nation - social parce que national (“social because national”) - the market economy remains a national interest. In France, the right-left scheme is tied primarily to economic and social policy; the predecessor organization Front National therefore coined the motto Ni Droite ni Gauche - français! ("Neither right nor left - French!")

protectionism

In the 1970s and 1980s, the party line could be understood as neoliberal in contrast to the statism of the ruling left-wing parties . The target group were primarily small self-employed and medium-sized companies . However, the party changed course towards rejection of economic globalization and protectionism , and is now increasingly addressing workers and the unemployed. So the party calls u. a .:

Immigration and Integration

The other parties are accused of destroying - particularly through immigration - a French national market economy and are thus responsible for unemployment. One of the main demands of the RN is to limit immigration , especially from non-European countries. During the presidential elections in 1995 , then party leader Jean-Marie Le Pen called for the repatriation of three million non-Europeans from France - the party line is now more moderate. Immigration from Muslim countries in particular is viewed critically: The party warns against the “Islamization” of the country. Immigration has been the party's main election campaign issue since the 1980s. Since 2007, limited immigration has been allowed in the program as part of a modernization scheme.

Specifically, the party demands in its program:

  • Illegal immigrants, known as sans-papiers (“without papers”) in France , should be expelled. The subsequent legalization of the sans-papiers should be banned as well as organizations that advocate their legalization or their right to stay.
  • Annual legal immigration to France is to be limited to 10,000 people.
  • Anyone who commits a criminal offense as a foreigner should immediately lose their right of residence in France after one year, whoever loses their job.
  • The right to asylum is to be drastically tightened to reduce the number of asylum seekers and asylum claimants based on the model of Japan. The family reunification should be abolished.
  • The ius soli for obtaining French citizenship is to be deleted ( “La nationalité française s'hérite ou se mérite!” German  You either inherit or earn French citizenship ). The naturalization to more difficult and the dual citizenship other than for EU citizens abolished.
  • Strict rules should apply to the construction of additional mosques , such as no (even indirect) funding from the French state and no funding from abroad.
  • "Visible religious symbols" such as the Islamic headscarf should be banned in public institutions.

Foreign policy

  • The European Union is to be transformed into a “ Europe of Nations ” that allows every nation state to retain its national sovereignty.
  • Withdrawal from the Schengen Agreement or a renegotiation that allows France to control its national borders.
  • Exit from the euro zone.
  • Exit from NATO , greater independence from other international organizations.

Increased penalties

In the presidential elections in 2002 , the issue of “law and order” was given more emphasis. The tightening of sentences, which also includes the demanded reintroduction of the death penalty , is an important item on the agenda.

Ideological classification

While the National Front under Jean-Marie Le Pen was unreservedly classified as right-wing extremist in political science, the classification has been inconsistent since Marine Le Pen took over the party chairmanship in 2011: Sofia Vasilopoulou, Daphne Halikiopoulou and Marcus Stadelmann classified the party as clearly right-wing extremist in 2014 . In 2014, Jean-Yves Camus used the category of "national populist right-wing extremism", Gilles Ivaldi and Joël Gombin in 2015 that of the "populist radical right". Sebastian Chwala described the Front National in 2015 as a “right-wing populist” party.

Tanja Wolf typologized the FN 2019 as "right-wing populist with right-wing extremist tendencies". As is typical for right-wing populist parties, the Front National does not have a comprehensive ideology, but rather a flexible worldview. The anti-establishment attitude, the demands for the expansion of civic participation, the juxtaposition of the “people” and the “elite” and the basic support for the rule of law, the focus on a charismatic leader, as well as rhetoric and style are right-wing populist forms. The definition of the people as a cultural nation with Islam as the enemy, but at the same time the possibility of immigrants assimilating and thus becoming members of the French nation, would also speak more in favor of right-wing populism than conventional right-wing extremism. The high degree of organizational design with highly centralized, top-down structures with a strong substructure, on the other hand, corresponds to that of a right-wing extremist party.

Party organization

Party leader

image Term of office
Jean-Marie Le Pen Jean-Marie Le Pen 479834203 5030701e77 o.jpg October 5, 1972-16. January 2011 Honorary chairman until 2015
Marine Le Pen Meeting 1 May 2012 Front National, Paris (44) (cropped) .jpg January 16, 2011–25. April 2017 Daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen
Jean-François Jalkh
( acting )
JFJalkh (cropped) .jpg April 25, 2017–28. April 2017 Le Pen gave up the party leadership briefly during the 2017 presidential campaign
Steeve Briois
( acting )
Raismes - Meeting de Marine Le Pen le 16 octobre 2015 sur l'élection régionale en Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie (28) (cropped 2) .JPG April 28, 2017–15. May 2017 took over the acting chairmanship after Jalkh was forced to resign over comments denying the Holocaust
Marine Le Pen Marine Le Pen (2017-03-24) 01 cropped.jpg since May 15, 2017

General Secretaries

Secretary General image Term of office
Alain Robert 1972-1973
Dominique Chaboche 1973-1974
Victor Barthélemy 1975-1988
Alain Renault 1978-1980
Pierre Gérard Gérard, Pierre (France enchaînée, 1938-10-01) - Copie.jpg 1980-1981
Jean-Pierre Stirbois Jean-Pierre STIRBOIS.jpg June 1981-5. November 1988
Carl Lang Carl Lang (cropped) .jpg 1988-1995
Bruno Gollnisch 200109 Bruno Gollnisch.jpg 1995-2005
Louis Aliot Louis Aliot Perpignan2008.JPG October 11, 2005–2. May 2010
Jean-François Jalkh Jean-François Jalkh.jpg May 2, 2010–16. January 2011
Steeve Briois Hénin-Beaumont - Élection officielle de Steeve Briois comme maire de la commune le dimanche 30 mars 2014 (092) .JPG January 16, 2011–30. March 2014
Nicolas Bay Nicolas Bay 07 (cropped) .jpg November 30, 2014–30. September 2017
Steeve Briois Raismes - Meeting de Marine Le Pen le 16 octobre 2015 sur l'élection régionale en Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie (28) (cropped 2) .JPG September 30, 2017–11. March 2018

The office of Secretary General was abolished in 2018.

family members

The RN collection movement is strongly influenced by the Le Pen family - even under Jean-Marie Le Pen, his three daughters (and their husbands or partners) were temporarily active in the party; in his successor none of the non-family members could prevail against Marine Le Pen; Critics sometimes speak of "a thriving family business" or a "dynasty". In addition to Marine and Jean-Marie Le Pen, the following were or are politically active:

  • Marion Maréchal-Le Pen (granddaughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen and niece of Marine) was elected in 2012 for the FN as a member of the French National Assembly for the Vaucluse department ; in May 2017, she temporarily resigned from all political functions. She is seen as a representative of a traditionalist line that emphasized the Catholic identity of France and the traditional family image and was seen at times as a serious competitor to Marine Le Pen. Since then she has been co-founder and director of the private university Institut des sciences sociales économiques et politiques (Issep) in Lyon, which set itself the goal of training right-wing conservative management staff.
  • Marie-Caroline Le Pen (eldest sister of Marine) ran for the FN in 1997 in the National Assembly elections, broke with her father in 1998. In 2020, she runs again for the party in the local elections in Calais. Her husband is a long-time party official.
  • Yann Le Pen (Marine's youngest sister and mother of Marion Maréchal-Le Pen) works in the party's press and public relations work. As with Marine and Marie-Caroline, her husband has been a long-time party official.

history

Foundation and development phase: the 1970s and 1980s of the Front National

The party was founded on October 5, 1972 as an amalgamation of various national-conservative and right-wing extremist movements. The forerunner and organizational core of the FN was the Comittée d'initiative pour une candidature nationale (initiative committee for a national candidacy), which nominated the lawyer Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour as a candidate for the extreme right in the 1965 presidential election. The driving force behind the committee was Jean-Marie Le Pen, who also acted as campaign manager for Tixier-Vignancour. Although his candidacy failed with only 5.2% of the vote in the first ballot, Le Pen had succeeded in forming a platform from various forces and organizations of the radical right that later formed the cornerstone of the FN.

Le Pen had previously been a member of the disbanded Union de défense des commerçants et artisans (Poujadists) in the National Assembly . Right from the start, the FN drew attention to itself with xenophobic statements and slogans directed against immigrants in France. Jean-Marie Le Pen has been convicted in more than 20 cases since 1960, including insults, death threats, racist and negationist statements and assault.

In the 1980s, the FN was elected to the National Assembly with at least one member in two parliamentary elections in a row. The cause can be seen as the economic pessimism of its core electorate at the time among the small self-employed. In the years that followed, the composition of the electorate changed significantly. To the detriment of the hitherto leading French Communist Party (PCF), the FN expanded its electorate among the workers North and East of France massively, which among other things, the collapse of the Eastern European real socialism and the economic problems of the region and unemployment through structural change away from Coal and steel is recycled. This did not continue when Le Pen's involvement in torture during the Algerian War became known. He had explained and justified this both in a speech in parliament in 1957 and in an interview with Combat magazine in 1962 .

The split

In 1998, Bruno Mégret split off with about half the leadership of the Front National and thousands of members because he saw Le Pen's leadership style as detrimental to the party's success. Louis Aliot said in 2015 that the FN had lost ten years to the grueling events. Mégret's party, the Mouvement national républicain (MNR), could not boast any major successes. In the same year, Le Pen was sentenced to one year of disqualification and three months probation for assault for assaulting a socialist mayor during an election campaign.

2002 presidential elections

To everyone's surprise, Jean-Marie Le Pen managed to come out of second place in the first round of the presidential elections in 2002, relegating Lionel Jospin , the candidate of the French Socialist Party (PS), to third place and into the second, decisive round of the To hold presidential elections. In the runoff election that followed, he was defeated, as expected, with only 17 versus 83 percent of the votes cast for incumbent President Jacques Chirac .

Regional elections 2004

In the regional elections in 2004, Le Pen was refused the candidacy in his constituency of Nice by the responsible prefect of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region for formal reasons. The Front National presented this process as a conspiracy against Le Pen, but could not achieve a better result for the party in the elections. The FN received around 12.6 percent of the vote nationwide.

2007 presidential campaign

In the election campaign for the presidency, Marine Le Pen , the daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen, who was already being traded as her father's successor, led a debate about the “de-diabolization” of the party. The aim of this "normalization" and "modernization" of the FN was to be able to address issues nationally even in the "middle of society".

In September 2006, the FN opened its election campaign in Valmy for the presidential elections on April 22nd and May 6th, 2007. The discussion about the campaign posters led to arguments about the party strategy. Representatives of modernization were attacked, such as Marine Le Pen. The posters showed people who represented a predominantly white cross-section of society. With the thumb pointing downwards, their statement read: "The left and the right - they broke everything!". By “right” in France, we mean the liberals and conservatives, not the extreme right. The argument arose over a poster showing a black young woman. She complained on the poster that “the usual suspects have also destroyed or corrupted 'citizenship, assimilation, opportunities for advancement'”. This poster was rejected; Marine Le Pen's strategy of opening up the party (see below) was only successful a few years later.

Overall, Jean-Marie Le Pen lost a lot of votes and was eliminated after the first ballot. He called on his voters to abstain from the runoff between the conservative candidate Nicolas Sarkozy ( UMP ) and the socialist candidate Ségolène Royal (PS).

Chaired by Marine Le Pen

In mid-January 2011 the party leadership changed. Marine Le Pen took over the chairmanship from her father and was elected with around 68 percent of the vote in a member survey. Marine Le Pen stands for an opening of the party towards democracy and secularism and a move away from racism and anti-Semitism . Since then, the party has kept its distance from right-wing extremist parties such as the BNP or the NPD and tries to position itself as a center-right force. The Alleanza Nazionale , the Partij voor de Vrijheid or the UK Independence Party are named as role models . Cooperation with the Austrian FPÖ was also intensified. The central topic is the criticism of Islam or hostility towards Islam and the warning against an “Islamization” of France. The party should also be open to immigrants if they make a commitment to the French nation and to assimilation . The credibility of this turnaround is doubted by experts, however, since many party members hold on to old positions; a public renunciation of Jean-Marie Le Pen, who remained honorary chairman of the party until 2015, and his racist statements did not initially take place.

Front National logo 2012-2018

In the cantonal elections in 2011, two general councilors were elected from the FN, Patrick Bassot in the Vaucluse department for the canton of Carpentras-Nord and Jean-Paul Dispard in the Var department for Brignoles . Dispard won in the second ballot with 50.03 against 49.97 percent for the PCF candidate (a difference of 5 votes). For the French presidential election in 2012 , the FN nominated party leader Marine Le Pen as a candidate. It got 17.9 percent of the vote. After the parliamentary elections that followed , the FN was represented in the French National Assembly with two members: the law student Marion Maréchal-Le Pen and the lawyer Gilbert Collard .

After the 2014 local elections, the party had at least ten mayors, for example in Fréjus , Villers-Cotterêts and Cogolin . In the European elections in 2014 , the Front National became the strongest party in France for the first time with 24.9 percent and moved into the EU Parliament with 16 members.

According to leaked emails from the head of the Kremlin Information Policy Department, Timur Prokopenko , on March 10, 2014, six days before the Crimean referendum , the Kremlin asked for support and offered financial compensation. The National Front then took a pro-Russian position. In September 2014, the Front National received a loan of 9.4 million euros from the Russian bank “First Czech Russian Bank”. It belongs to Roman Popow , the former CFO of Stroytransgaz . Roman Popov is a confidante of Russian President Vladimir Putin . The loan came about through the mediation of the Russian MP Alexander Babakov . Babakov is on the EU sanctions list . Le Pen denied media reports that the 9.4 million euros are only part of a larger loan of 40 million euros.

Since 2014 there have been investigations against people from the leadership of the then FN and since September 9, 2015 also against the FN itself on suspicion of illegal party funding and financial fraud against the state in the context of the 2012 elections.

Family feud at the helm of the National Front 2015

In April and May 2015, the long-standing tensions between party leader Marine Le Pen and her father, the party founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, escalated. In previous years, he had caused negative headlines on several occasions, above all with his repeated remark that the Holocaust is a "detail of history". On April 8, 2015, Marine Le Pen declared that she would not support her father's candidacy for the Regional Council of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur . In a press reply, 86-year-old Jean-Marie Le Pen said that his daughter may be hoping for his death soon, but that he cannot count on his support in this regard. He appeared uninvited at the FN rally on May 1st in Paris and was celebrated by his supporters. On May 4, 2015, the FN's executive office ( bureau exécutif ), chaired by Marine Le Pen, suspended its membership in the party because of his remarks about World War II. At the same time, a strike vote was announced on the question of whether the office of honorary chairman, previously held by Jean-Marie Le Pen, should be abolished. The decision of the executive office was preceded by a vote by the party executive committee in which 40 members stood behind Marine Le Pen, with one abstention and three votes against (Jean-Marie Le Pen, Bruno Gollnisch and Alain Jamet ). In a public comment, Marine Le Pen said that her father could not bear that the Front National could exist without him as chairman and that he should no longer speak on behalf of the FN because his remarks contradicted the official party line. Her father then replied on 4th / 5th. May 2015, also through the press, that he had been "disowned" and that it would be "scandalous" if his daughter should win the next presidential election in 2017. Instead, she should get married again so that she no longer bears his family name. On August 20, 2015, Jean-Marie Le Pen was expelled from the party for “serious misconduct”.

In the regional elections in France in 2015 , the Front National received 27.73 percent of the vote in the first ballot on December 6, 2015 and became the strongest party in six of the 13 future regions. Moderate right lists ( Les Républicains , Union des démocrates et indépendants and Mouvement démocrate ) received 26.65 and moderate left lists ( Parti socialiste , Parti radical de gauche ) 23.12 percent of the vote. In the second ballot, the Front National was defeated by the Republican and Socialist candidates and was therefore not a government in any of the 13 French regions.

Presidential and parliamentary elections 2017 and their consequences

In the run-up to the 2017 presidential elections , Marine Le Pen was long considered the most promising candidate and was at the top of the polls with up to 30% until spring 2017. Despite the corruption scandal among the Republicans, the collapse of voting intentions for the socialists and various terrorist attacks in spring 2017, Marine Le Pen was unable to maintain her lead with the rise of Emmanuel Macron and was only second in the first ballot in April 2017 with 21.3 percent of the vote , but moved into the runoff against Macron. In the only televised debate with Macron between the first and second ballot, Le Pen's performance and arguments were generally rated as disappointing and in the election it received significantly fewer votes than hoped with 33.9%. In the election to the National Assembly that followed shortly afterwards , the party received 8 members. That was more than in the previous elections, in which the FN only received 2 seats. However, the result was not enough to form a separate group in parliament.

Internally, the leadership around Marine Le Pen and her deputy Florian Philippot was increasingly criticized and accused for the disappointing result. It was said that the sharply anti-European course and the rejection of the euro had deterred many potential voters and thwarted an alliance with conservative politicians. An electoral alliance announced at the beginning of May with the national-conservative splinter party Debout la France broke up just a few days later, before the parliamentary elections. The ensuing internal disputes meant that the FN barely appeared in domestic politics. At the end of September there were sanctions against Florian Philippot, who was accused of wanting to expand his power in the party with his internal party association Les Patriotes ; he immediately announced his departure from the party.

Marine Le Pen announced the renaming of the party to Rassemblement National in March 2018 . The renaming was confirmed in Lyon on June 1, 2018 by 81 percent of the members in a ballot. The new party name goes back to the parliamentary group Front National - Rassemblement National in the National Assembly, which existed in the 1980s under Jean-Marie Le Pen .

Election results

Presidential elections:

  • 1974 (Jean-Marie Le Pen): 0.75%
  • 1981: did not take part
  • 1988 (Jean-Marie Le Pen): 14.38%
  • 1995 (Jean-Marie Le Pen): 15.00%
  • 2002 (Jean-Marie Le Pen): 16.86%, 2nd ballot: 17.79%
  • 2007 (Jean-Marie Le Pen): 10.44%
  • 2012 (Marine Le Pen): 17.90%
  • 2017 (Marine Le Pen): 21.30%, 2nd ballot: 33.90%

Parliamentary elections:

  • 1973: 1.33%
  • 1978: 0.29%
  • 1981: 0.18%
  • 1986: 9.65%
  • 1988: 9.66% (0 of 577 mandates)
  • 1993: 12.42% (0 of 577 mandates)
  • 1997: 14.94% (1 of 577 mandates)
  • 2002: 11.34% (0 of 577 mandates)
  • 2007: 4.29% (0 of 577 mandates)
  • 2012: 13.60% (2 of 577 mandates)
  • 2017: 13.20% (8 of 577 mandates)

European elections:

  • 1984: 10.95% (10 of 81 mandates)
  • 1989: 11.73% (10 of 81 mandates)
  • 1994: 10.52% (11 of 87 mandates)
  • 1999: 5.69% (5 of 87 mandates)
  • 2004: 9.81% (7 of 74 mandates)
  • 2009: 6.34% (4 of 74 mandates)
  • 2014: 24.86% (24 of 74 mandates)
  • 2019: 23.31% (23 of 79 mandates)

Regional strongholds

Share of votes for Marine Le Pen in the first round of the 2017 presidential election: the strongholds are in the south and northeast.

Strongholds of the FN are in the south of France ( le Midi ), for example in the regions of Languedoc-Roussillon and Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur and the industrial cities of the Lorraine and Nord-Pas de Calais regions, which are characterized by social problems . Another historical stronghold of the FN is Alsace . There, however, there was a direct competitor to the FN with the small Alsace d'abord party due to its regional profile. A programmatic difference between the two parties is that Alsace d'abord is clearly pro-European. Alsace d'abord, however, disappeared into insignificance at the end of the 2000s.

In Perpignan in the south of France , the Rassemblement National has provided Louis Aliot as the mayor of a large city for the first time since 2020. The right-hand list kept by him occupies 42 of the 57 seats in the municipal council.

Political apron organizations

The FN's youth organization was called Front national de la jeunesse (FNJ) from 1973 to 2018 , when it was renamed Génération nation (GN). Its chairman is MEP Jordan Bardella . The service d'ordre "DOM" , initiated by Roger Holeindre and since 1993 Département Protection Sécurité (DPS; Department of Protection and Security) acts as the party’s own security service. The FN also included the Alliance générale contre le racisme et pour le respect de l'identité française et chrétienne (AGRIF; "general alliance against racism and for respect for French and Christian identity"), founded by Bernard Antony in 1985 , which, according to its own statement, campaigns against "anti-French and anti-Christian racism, pornography and violations of respect for women and children". It mainly appeals to the traditionally Catholic milieu. In addition, there were or are apron organizations for business people, farmers, women, workers and the unemployed.

In the 1990s, several industry unions related to the FN were formed, particularly for police officers, prison staff and public transport workers. Their umbrella organization Coordination française nationale des travailleurs (CFNT) was stripped of its union status after the labor court elections in 1997 because it was too politically partisan. In 1998 , the Court of Cassation also dismissed the police union Front national de la Police (FNP) as a union.

European level

In its first European elections in 1984 , the FN entered the European Parliament with ten members. The group of the European right was founded together with the post-fascist Italian MSI and a Greek MP . The group leader was Jean-Marie Le Pen .

After the European elections in 1989 , the MSI withdrew from its cooperation with the FN. The German Republicans (REP) and the only member of the Vlaams Blok became new partners . Le Pen was again chairman of the group. The group was marked by disputes between and within the parties, especially with the REP. After the REP, led by party chairman and MEP Franz Schönhuber , had excluded two MEPs for right-wing extremist and anti-Semitic statements, Le Pen refused to also exclude them from the parliamentary group. Thereupon Schönhuber and later almost all other REP MPs left the parliamentary group.

With the resignation of the Republicans in 1994 , a right-wing radical group was no longer formed in the European Parliament. The FN sought cooperation with other European parties, among other things by founding the party alliance Euronat in 1997, but remained non-attached in the European Parliament for the time being. More moderate right-wing populist parties such as the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) under Jörg Haider , the Danish People's Party (DF), the Norwegian Progressive Party and even the MSI successor party Alleanza Nazionale distanced themselves from Le Pen and the FN. In 1999 the FN participated in the establishment of the Technical Group of Independent Members , a mixed group of right-wing and left-wing extremists and radical democratic members. The parliamentary group was dissolved in 2001 due to a lack of "lack of political affiliation".

After Romania and Bulgaria joined the EU on January 1, 2007 and right-wing extremist parties from both countries entered the EU, the FN was able to co-found the Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty (ITS) faction . FN politician Bruno Gollnisch became chairman of the parliamentary group . The common political basis of the newly founded parliamentary group was the so-called "Vienna Declaration of European Patriotic and National Parties and Movements", which represented a political platform for right-wing EU-critical parties in Europe. After internal disputes and the resignation of the Romanian MPs of the PRM , the group was dissolved on November 14, 2007, as it had fewer than 20 members.

Once again, the FN members remained non-attached. In 2009, Le Pen, Gollnisch and other members of the former ITS faction founded the European party Alliance of European National Movements .

With the change of party leadership from Jean Marie to Marine Le Pen, the FN was looking for new partners in Europe. In 2012 Marine Le Pen became deputy chairwoman of the European Alliance for Freedom (EAF), which included MPs from the FPÖ and the Vlaams Belang (VB).

For the 2014 European elections, Marine Le Pen forged an “Alliance of Sovereignists”, which included EAF members, the Dutch PVV von Geert Wilders and the Lega Nord . Other parties such as the UK Independence Party (UKIP) or the Alternative für Deutschland refused to work with the FN. The Sweden Democrats , traded as possible partners, held back. The right-wing extremist Hungarian Jobbik party and the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn from Greece were not wanted by the FN in the group. The planned establishment of a parliamentary group after the election did not materialize despite the alliance partners winning seats, as the parliamentary group did not come from at least seven countries.

As a result, the FN and its chairman Marine Le Pen initiated the founding of the European party Movement for a Europe of Nations and Freedom (MENL), which took place on October 3, 2014 and will replace the EAF in the medium term. In December 2014, the MENL was recognized by the European Parliament and a party funding of 1.17 million euros was awarded.

On June 15, 2015, the Group Europe of Nations and Freedom (ENF) was founded with a UKIP defector from UKIP . It is the smallest group in the European Parliament in the current parliamentary term. Marcel de Graaff and Marine Le Pen became joint parliamentary group chairmen . After Le Pen's move to the French National Assembly, Nicolas Bay , at that time still Secretary General of the FN, took over.

After the 2019 European elections , the ENF was replaced by the Identity and Democracy group .

Front / Rassemblement National in European elections
choice Leading candidate European party be right % Seats fraction
1979 not started
1984 Jean-Marie Le Pen - 000000000000002.21000000002,210,334 11.0%
10/81
European Right Group
1989 Jean-Marie Le Pen - 000000000000002.12900000002,129,668 11.7%
10/81
Technical Group of the European Right
1994 Jean-Marie Le Pen - 000000000000002.05000000002,050,086 10.5%
11/87
non-attached
1999 Jean-Marie Le Pen Euronat 000000000000001.00500000001,005,113 05.7%
5/87
Technical Group of Independent Members (until October 2001)
2004 Jean-Marie Le Pen Euronat 000000000000001.68400000001,684,792 09.8%
7/78
Identity, tradition, sovereignty (January to November 2007)
2009 Jean-Marie Le Pen Euronat 000000000000001.09100000001,091,691 06.3%
3/72
non-attached
2014 Marine Le Pen EAF 000000000000004.71200000004,712,461 24.9%
24/74
Europe of Nations and Freedom (from June 2015)
2019 Jordan Bardella MENL 000000000000005.28600000005,286,939 23.3%
22/74
Identity and democracy

literature

Entries in reference books

  • Stephen E. Atkins: Encyclopedia of Modern Worldwide Extremists and Extremist Groups . Greenwood Press, Westport 2004, ISBN 0-313-32485-9 , pp. 101-103. (see: Front National (FN) (France) )
  • Jean-Yves Camus : Front National (France) . In: Wolfgang Benz (Hrsg.): Handbuch des Antisemitismus . Hostility to Jews in the past and present . Volume 5: Organizations, Institutions, Movements . On behalf of the Center for Research on Antisemitism at the Technical University of Berlin. De Gruyter Saur, Berlin a. a. 2012, ISBN 978-3-598-24078-2 , pp. 264-266. (Translation by Christian Mentel)
  • Bernd Wagner (Hrsg.): Handbook for right-wing extremism: networks, parties, organizations, ideology centers, media (= rororo current . 13425). Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1994, ISBN 3-499-13425-X , pp. 228-233. (see: Front National (FN) )

Monographs / edited volumes

  • Magali Balent: Le Front national et le monde. Le discours du FN sur les relations internationales sous la présidence de Jean-Marie Le Pen . Editions universitaires europeennes, Saarbrücken 2011, ISBN 978-613-1-58693-4 .
  • Jean-Yves Camus : Front national. A threat to French democracy? (= Publication Series Extremism & Democracy , Vol. 11). Bouvier, Bonn 1998, ISBN 3-416-02716-7 .
  • Sebastian Chwala: The National Front. History, program, politics and voters (= Neue kleine Bibliothek . 219). PapyRossa, Cologne 2015, ISBN 978-3-89438-592-7 .
  • Peter Davies: The National Front in France. Ideology, discourse and power . Routledge, London a. a. 1999, ISBN 0-415-15866-4 .
  • Daniela Heimberger: The Front National in Alsace. Right-wing extremism in France. A regional election analysis. Westdeutscher Verlag, Wiesbaden 2001, ISBN 3-531-13700-X (plus dissertation, University of Freiburg, 2001).
  • Thomas Lampe: The rise of the “Front National” in France. Extremism and populism from the right (= contributions to the discussion by the Institute for Political Science (Hanover) . D 16). With a foreword by Wolfgang Kreutzberger, Materialis-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1992, ISBN 3-88535-146-3 .
  • Nonna Mayer , Pascal Perrineau (eds.): Le Front National à découvert . Presses de Sciences Po, Paris 1996, ISBN 2-7246-0696-5 .
  • Bernhard Schmid : The Right in France. From the French Revolution to the Front National (= Antifa Edition ). Elefanten Press, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-88520-642-0 .
  • Harvey G. Simmons: The French National Front. The Extremist Challenge to Democracy . Westview Press, Boulder 1996, ISBN 0-8133-8979-8 .
  • Anne Tristan: From within. As a member of the Front National in the stronghold of Le Pens. With a foreword by Günter Wallraff , Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1988, ISBN 3-462-01909-0 .

Contributions to edited volumes

  • Magali Balent: The French National Front from Jean-Marie to Marine Le Pen: Between Change and Continuity. In: Karsten Grabow , Florian Hartleb (eds.): Exposing the Demagogues. Right-wing and National Populist Parties in Europe . Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung / Center for European Studies, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-2-930632-26-1 , pp. 161-186.
  • Brigitte Beauzamy: Explaining the Rise of the Front National to Electoral Prominence: multi-faceted or contradictory models? . In: Ruth Wodak , Majid KhosraviNik, Brigitte Mral (Eds.): Right-Wing Populism in Europe: Politics and Discourse . Bloomsbury, London a. a. 2013, ISBN 978-1-78093-343-6 , p. 177 ff.
  • Jean-Yves Camus: The Front National in International Perspective . In: Caroline Y. Robertson-von Trotha (Ed.): Right-wing extremism in Germany and Europe. Right outside - right "middle"? (= Interdisciplinary cultural studies series . Vol. 7). Nomos, Baden-Baden 2011, ISBN 978-3-8329-5817-6 , p. 103 ff.
  • Jocelyn Evans: 'La politique du dehors avec les raisons du dedans'. Foreign and Defense Policy of the French Front National . In: Christina Schiori Lang (Ed.): Europe for the Europeans: The Foreign and Security Policy of the Populist Radical Right . Ashgate Publishing, Burlington et al. a. 2007, ISBN 978-0-7546-4851-2 , pp. 125 ff.
  • Christopher Flood: Organizing Fear and Indigination. The Front National in France . In: Richard J. Golsan (Ed.): Facism's Return. Scandal, Revision, and Ideology since 1980 . University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln 1998, ISBN 0-8032-2159-2 , pp. 19 ff.
  • Gilles Ivaldi, Marc Swyngedouw : Right-wing extremism in populist form. Front National and Vlaams Belang . In: Frank Decker (Ed.): Populism: Danger to Democracy or Useful Corrective? . VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2006, ISBN 3-531-14537-1 , pp. 121-143.
  • Nonna Mayer, Mariette Sineau: France: The Front National . In: Helga Amesberger , Brigitte Halbmayr (ed.): Right-wing extremist parties - a possible home for women? . Leske and Budrich, Opladen 2002, ISBN 3-8100-3366-9 , p. 61 ff.
  • Subrata K. Mitra : The National Front in France - a Single-Issue Movement? . In: Klaus von Beyme (Ed.): Right-Wing Extremism in Western Europe . Routledge, New York 2013, ISBN 978-0-7146-3345-9 , p. 47 ff.

Web links

Federal Agency for Civic Education

Individual evidence

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  2. Pourquoi le reste FN résolument un parti d'extrême droite. In: Le Monde , March 23, 2016, accessed April 24, 2017.
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  4. Par Segolene Gros de Larquier: Marine Le Pen, la présidentielle et le brin de muguet. In: lepoint.fr . February 1, 2011, accessed January 7, 2017 (French).
  5. book title
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  10. France's rights can be celebrated. (No longer available online.) In: Rheinische Post . April 23, 2012, archived from the original on September 24, 2015 ; Retrieved June 9, 2014 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.rp-online.de
  11. Daphne Halikiopoulou, Sofia Vasilopoulou: Support for the Far Right in the 2014 European Parliament Elections. A Comparative Perspective. In: The Political Quarterly , Volume 85, 2014, pp. 285-288.
  12. Marcus Stadelmann: The Marinisation of France. Marine Le Pen and the French National Front. In: International Journal of Humanities and Social Science , Volume 4, No. 10 (1), August 2014.
  13. ^ Jean-Yves Camus: The Front National (FN) - a right-wing radical party? Friedrich Ebert Foundation, April 2014, p. 2.
  14. Gilles Ivaldi, Joël Gombin: The Front National and the new politics of the rural in France. In: Dirk Strijker u. a .: Rural protest groups and populist political parties. Wageningen Academic Publishing, Wageningen, pp. 243-264.
  15. Sebastian Chwala: The National Front - Insights into a “right-wing populist” party. In: sopos , No. 12/2015.
  16. ^ Tanja Wolf: Right-wing extremists and right-wing populist parties in Europe. Typology and comparison. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2019, pp. 253, 436-439.
  17. Press release of the Front National of May 6, 2014 ( Memento of the original of July 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.frontnational.com
  18. ^ Marc de Boni: Jean-François Jalkh, un compagnon de route de Jean-Marie Le Pen aux manettes du FN . In: Le Figaro . April 25, 2017, ISSN  0182-5852 ( lefigaro.fr [accessed April 25, 2017]).
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  21. C-News: [" https://www.cnews.fr/politique/2012-06-18/le-front-national-une-affaire-de-famille-21154 LE FRONT NATIONAL: UNE AFFAIRE DE FAMILLE] , June 18, 2012 (updated in April 2015) (fraz.)
  22. Marion Maréchal: The right cadre forge the Le Pen niece. Retrieved June 6, 2019 .
  23. ^ David Art: Inside the Radical Right: The Development of Anti-Immigrant-Parties in Western Europe . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2011 ISBN 978-0-521-89624-5 p. 122
  24. Hamid Bousselham: Tortures par Le Pen (Tortured Le Pen) éditions Rahma
  25. Lilith Volkert: How the Front National became a "normal" party . In: sueddeutsche.de . February 7, 2017, ISSN  0174-4917 ( sueddeutsche.de [accessed July 29, 2017]).
  26. Katharina Peters: France: Right-wing extremists choose Le Pen as boss. In: Spiegel Online . January 16, 2011, accessed January 7, 2017 .
  27. ^ Strache meeting with Le Pen: criticism and excitement. In: ORF . June 8, 2011.
  28. K. Biswas: Right and Right. In: Le Monde diplomatique , October 14, 2011.
  29. ^ Cantonales: le PS en tête, le FN obtient deux élus. In: Le Figaro . March 28, 2011.
  30. ^ First round of elections in France: Hollande wins, Le Pen shocks many French. In: Spiegel Online . April 23, 2012, accessed January 7, 2017 .
  31. ^ Abel Mestre: Avec au moins dix villes, Marine Le Pen a réussi son pari. In: Le Monde , March 30, 2014 (French).
  32. Financement du FN: the hackers russes dévoilent of échanges au Kremlin. In: Le Monde. April 2, 2015, accessed April 4, 2015 (French).
  33. Russia's new friends - Europe's ultra-right in solidarity with Moscow. In: Deutschlandfunk. Retrieved January 30, 2017 .
  34. Putin's confidante finances Front National. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , November 24, 2014.
    Luke Harding: We should beware Russia's links with Europe's right. In: The Guardian , December 8, 2014.
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  36. ^ A b France National Front: Jean-Marie Le Pen 'ashamed' his daughter has his name. BBC News, May 5, 2015, accessed May 5, 2015 .
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  38. ^ Stefan Ulrich: France - Jean-Marie Le Pen excluded from the Front National. In: sueddeutsche.de . August 20, 2015, accessed January 7, 2017 .
  39. Elections régionales et des Assemblées de Corse, Guyane et Martinique 2015. France Entière - Résultats au one he tour. Ministry of Interior of the French Republic, accessed December 7, 2015 .
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  46. ^ Rudolf Walther: Right Mayor in Southern France - Contested memory. In: taz , July 3, 2020.
  47. Louis Aliot installé maire de Perpignan, plus large pinch of RN municipales. In: La Croix , July 3, 2020.
  48. ^ Michael Minkenberg : The National Front (FN). In: Sabine Russ among others: Parties in France. Continuity and Change in the Fifth Republic. Leske + Budrich, Opladen 2000, pp. 267–288, here p. 278.
  49. ^ Michel Wieviorka: Le Front national. Entre extremisme, populisme et démocratie. Éditions de la Maison des sciences de l'homme, Paris 2013, p. 44.
  50. http://home.alphalink.com.au/~radnat/theories-right/theory3.html
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  52. ^ Christian Grimm, Hans Bentzien : AfD does not want to flirt with Front National. ( Memento from April 4, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) In: The Wall Street Journal , March 31, 2014.
  53. Fabian Leber: The new faction of the right. In: tagesspiegel.de . May 29, 2014, accessed January 7, 2017 .
  54. ^ Marie-Madeleine Courtial: FN: Aymeric Chauprade veut se réconcilier avec Marine Le Pen. In: la-nouvelle-gazette.fr. Retrieved January 7, 2017 (French).
  55. Cas Mudde: The EAF is dead! Long live the MENL! In: opendemocracy.net. October 12, 2014, accessed January 7, 2017 .
  56. Grants from the European Parliament to political parties at European level per party and per year as of March 2015