France’s presidential
election is now looming and the heat of the contest shows no sign of abating.
Marine Le Pen, Emmanuel Macron and, more recently, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, have
positioned themselves as three political outsiders in serious contention, but
only a brave man would rule out the former clear-favourite, François Fillon.
Amidst the sound and fury
of barbed televised debates, swinging opinion polls and grandstanding political
commentary, an extraordinary event is approaching, according to the latest
predictions: the young people of France may come out in majority for Front
National. This would be hugely unexpected for two reasons: it would go against
the grain of millennial behaviour in recent votes across Europe and North
America; and also it would be a seismic shift from their track record in past French
elections.
That is what the daily
polls from Ifop-Fiducial[1] are suggesting, with as
many as one in three under-30s set to tick Marine Le Pen’s ballot box on 23rd
April. This would seem very much a plausible outcome given the 2015 regional
elections, in which more young voters turned out for Front National than any
other party.
In absence of any
particularly ground-breaking economic policy, it appears that Le Pen’s tough
stance on immigration, the EU, terrorism and cultural identity is attracting a
level of support from Millennials never before seen by her party. To find out
why this narrative is proving so tractable with this demographic, we must
understand the circumstances and outlook of the youth of France.
Since booting the
Socialist Party (SP) out in 1995, France thrice elected a right wing president,
each time veering closer and closer back to the SP before ultimately voting in
Hollande in 2012. Young people were integral to this, as they were in Chirac’s
decimation of Jean-Marie Le Pen in the 2002 second round. We can clearly see,
then, that young French people voted in line with our expectations for this age
group in the past 20 years.
The unemployment rate in
France is currently just under 10%, a beacon of Hollande’s economic failures
throughout his tenure, as it was 9.4% at the beginning of 2012. The youth
unemployment rate, however, is 26[2]%. That puts it 7th
highest in the EU, behind the likes of Greece, Spain, Portugal and Cyprus. Monthly
wage growth has fallen from 0.8% to 0.2% in the same period[3]. In short, the 2012 vote
for change has not brought any profound improvements to the financial livelihoods
of young French people.
Just as across the rest
of Europe, young people are facing the brunt of these ramifications: bleak job
prospects, high income tax, and stagnant wages. Front National might not have
any inspiring economic silver bullets but, as far as the young are concerned,
neither do the established right or left. They have tried them both, and
neither have been good enough. And although the current candidates are new
people with new policies, the case of Labour in the UK shows just how difficult
it is to shake off an image of economic ineptitude.
Le Pen’s economic
policies, then, are probably not winning the attention of Millennials, but
neither are they losing it. Lacking any considerable competition on this front
from the other runners, her approach to the EU, terrorism and national identity
are proving significant in her party’s newfound youth support base.
As a colonial power,
France has a long history with issues of identity and the consequences of
becoming a globalised nation. As with the British Empire, the full
ramifications were only fully felt once imperial breakdown had begun. The
1954-62 Algerian War of Independence was especially consequential, as violence in
Africa caused an exodus of one million European settlers back to France.
According to sociologist Éric Fassin, their sense of embitterment would form
the bedrock of the far right for years to come[4].
But a colonial past can
only explain why France might be generally vulnerable to nativist tendencies
pervading politics. It cannot explain why this is maturing into widespread
support for Marine Le Pen in 2017.
The most obvious factor
which differentiates this election from previous ones is the recent increase in
terrorist attacks, as well as the likely threat of more. These stoke nativist
concerns, and, to put it cynically, collaborate with Le Pen’s hard-line anti-immigration
views. She has a history of shaping the raging debate over Islam in France:
earlier in the campaign, she caused a storm by claiming that French
schoolchildren were being fed halal meat covertly. Politicians of all parties
spent the ensuing two days debating the issue, straddling the precarious line
between desisting from Islamophobia and appearing unsympathetic to genuine
worries regarding religion. This of course all played into Le Pen’s hands, who seemed
the only person truly protecting French interests, regardless of whether her
claims were even true. Crucial to her growing popularity, each subsequent
Islamist terrorist attack adds credibility to her fears. And fear is
contagious.
But there is a flaw in
seeing anti-immigration/terrorism as the fulcrum upon which all her success
turns. Such scaremongering about the threat posed by Islam to the essence and
safety of Europe did not win over Millennials in the Austrian elections, or the
Dutch ones, or the Brexit referendum (as a Leave campaign poster attempted to
conflate migration from the Middle East with the EU’s open border policy).
Undoubtedly, terrorism will push some in the direction of the figure pledging
to tackle it most earnestly, especially as France has suffered more attacks in
the last few years than any other country in Europe. Nonetheless, fear grips
all Europeans in present times, whether your nation has faced one, multiple, or
no attacks. Yet it does not appear that this was significant enough to make
young voters break from their typically liberal values elsewhere, so it is
unlikely that this is the sole reason behind their new allegiance to the far
right in France.
More broadly, Front
National has taken ownership of national identity and, by championing it,
champions her own claim to be its true defender. The fragility of this concept
in French minds has been witnessed many times before Marine Le Pen’s emergence:
the 2005 Clichy-sous-Bois riots; Sarkozy’s presidential quest to find and
define the ‘French identity’; even the opening line of Charles de Gaulle’s
memoirs – “All my life I’ve had a certain idea France” – all placed ‘L’identité francaise’ at the forefront
of the French psyche.
The fact that the concept
of ‘Français de souche’ (literally
“French of root” – French people whose ancestry derives from European roots)
has grown in prominence over this campaign is a testament to the influence
which the far right has had. In an interview on secularism, Marine Le Pen has
claimed that “France is still unquestionably a country of Christian roots”,
implying that Muslim culture is simply incompatible with French/European
civilisation. Such sentiments, combining paranoia and national solidarity in a
society so fissiparous, are clearly proving potent amongst all people,
including the young.
The Front National has crucially
strengthened its credibility through its dédiabolisation
process – literally ‘de-devilment’. Jean-Marie Le Pen, Marine’s father and the
notoriously xenophobic founder of the party, was evicted in an ingenious public
relations feat. Furthermore, nobody can doubt the commitment of a leader
prepared to kick their own father out of the party to help the cause. In
addition, Marine has placed much emphasis on the feminist side of her
character, a nod to those who might feel uneasy about her social virtues.
All of this adds to the uninspiring campaigns of the traditional parties, and the inescapable reality that France’s economy is failing its people, especially its youth, who are now faced with a life of bleak prospects. Millennials might just see 2017 as a chance to roll the dice and demand a radical change in direction at the polling station.
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