The territorialization of national-populist politics: A case study of the Front National in France

Résumé En

This chapter focuses on the territorialization of the mobilization strategies of the FN in France. To do so, it chapter adopts a sub-national approach and asks to which extent the FN engages in different strategies to take advantage of specific regional and local opportunities. We argue that the current FN operates across both a cultural (identity) and socio-economic (distributional) conflict. This allows the party to adjust its supply of national-populism to different contexts and arenas where cultural and economic issues vary in salience and in the resonance they find in the political process. Additionally, we examine party organization and party competition. The FN has become institutionalized and it has recently increased its presence in sub-national politics. Different parts of the FN may diverge in the areas of elite recruitment, party programs and local campaigning, and organizational strengths may also help mobilize voters sub-nationally. Finally, different regionalized party sub-systems may produce different opportunities for the interpretation of its national-populism by the FN. Adopting a most different systems design, this chapter draws on a comparative analysis of the 2015 regional elections across two emblematic French regions, namely Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur (PACA) in the Mediterranean South, and Hauts-de-France (HDF, formerly Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie) in the Northern part of the country. Both regions are electoral strongholds of the FN but show substantial variation in their socio-demographic profile, economy and political history, making them relevant cases for our analysis.