The Front National and the new politics of the rural in France

Gilles Ivaldi (1) , Joël Gombin (2)

1 URMIS - Unite de recherche migrations et sociétés
2 CURAPP-ESS - Centre universitaire de recherches sur l'action publique et le politique. Epistémologie et Sciences sociales

The French Front National (FN) epitomizes the post-industrial radical right party family in Europe, manifesting a predominantly urban cultural and economic malaise. The party has however progressively formulated a more comprehensive rural agenda over the years, idealizing agrarian values and specifically addressing farmers’ interests. Since the early 2000s, the FN has grown stronger in rural areas. It has done so by challenging the status quo represented by the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union and the traditional center-right and Gaullist alignment of the farming world. More recently, the party has embraced a more leftist economic agenda catering for intensifying demands for state intervention and public service provisions in rural territories. In 2012, the electoral success of the FN in peripheries reflected primarily the territorialization of the subjective and objective proletarianization of the working and lower middle class.

Mots clés: agriculture; new right; Front national; rural

Domaines: Science politique

Gilles Ivaldi, Joël Gombin. The Front National and the new politics of the rural in France . Dirk Strijker; Gerrit Voerman; Ida J. Terluin. Rural protest groups and populist political parties, Wageningen Academic Publishers, 2015, 9789086862597. ⟨10.3920/978-90-8686-807-0_11⟩. ⟨halshs-01245081⟩