Twenty-First Century Populism: The Spectre of Western European ...

France 169
strong ideologies, left an ideological gap that could be filled with a substituting
ideology. Second, there was in France a sophisticated far Right intelligentsia
(for example, GRECE and Club l’Horloge), which facilitated the FN’s
success in transforming and reframing the social and political crises of the
early 1980s into a crisis of national identity. Third, French citizenship policy
was challenged in the late 1970s and early 1980s due to the fact that
400,000 young second-generation Algerian immigrants had the automatic
right to obtain French citizenship (Brubaker, 1992: 139−142). This event
triggered an intense debate about citizenship laws and provided the opportunity
for nationalist actors − not least the FN − to criticize the existing
legislation for ‘turning foreigners into Frenchmen on paper without making
sure that they were “French at heart” (Français de cœur)’ (Brubaker, 1992:
143). An increasing proportion of the second-generation Algerian immigrants
were free to choose between military service in France or in Algeria.
Yet, although they had to serve two years in Algeria, but only one in France,
many chose nonetheless to do military service in Algeria (Brubaker, 1992:
145). This had a provocative and mobilizing effect on people who believed
that ‘citizenship should possess dignity and command respect. It should
not be sought for convenience or personal advantage. It should possess
intrinsic, not merely instrumental, value. It should be sacred, not profane’
(Brubaker, 1992: 147).
As Michel Winock (1998: 24−25) has demonstrated, ethnonationalism
has re-emerged periodically in France (cf. Jenkins and Copsey, 1996: 106;
Koopmanns and Statham, 2000: 38). The ideology of French ethnonationalism
has also often been mixed with an anti-republican and anti-democratic
tradition, not least because of its distinction between the ‘essence’ of France
or the ‘real France’, on the one hand, and the ‘legal France’ with its political
institutions, on the other hand. Within this tradition, the political institutions
have typically been seen as a negation of the essence of the ‘real
France’, and as a cause of degeneration.
The ethnonationalist message
For the FN, the rights of the nation transcend those of the individual (Davies,
1999: 130) and the equilibrium of the nation is considered to be more important
than the possibilities for individuals to pursue their own liberation,
emancipation and self-realization. In its 1985 programme, the party defines
the nation as
the community of language, interest, race, memories and culture where
man blossoms. [A man] is attached to it by roots and deaths, its past,
heredity and heritage. Everything that the nation transmits to him at
birth already has an inestimable value. (Front National, 1985: 29−30,
quoted in Davies, 1999: 82)