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

France 179
produce the first and most basic selection mechanism ... visibility.’ The media
also play a role in their own right, by participating in agenda-setting and
the framing of political issues. Furthermore, there is a growing tendency to
personalize issues within the media, which may benefit populist parties
which give the leader a pronounced central role (Eatwell, 2003, 2005). As
the battle for readers and viewers has intensified due to new technologies
and the growing privatization of the mass media in many countries, there
has also been an increasing tendency to focus on the most scandalous
aspects of politics which, in turn, may contribute to anti-establishment sentiments
(Mudde, 2004). It is thus interesting to note, as Roger Eatwell (2005)
has pointed out, that the Front National achieved its electoral breakthrough
shortly after Le Pen was allowed access to state television.
In conclusion, we can see that the Front National has now been a significant
political force in French politics for over two decades. Although many
thought the party was on the wane after the split in 1999, Le Pen showed in
the 2002 presidential election that there is still a demand for the mixture of
ethnonationalism, xenophobia and populism that the FN offers. According
to Koopmans et al. (2005: 5), many people have experienced a loss of identity
as a result of globalization and, because there ‘is nothing beyond the
nation-state that can serve as a new anchor for collective identities and can
renew the sense of control’, they turn to nationalism as a way to find such
an anchorage. If this is true − and if populism is fostered by the increasing
complexity of the political process, the declining political autonomy of the
nation-state and the growing opaqueness of political decision-making
processes – then it is unlikely that the demand for this political message
will disappear in the near future. Similarly, there are few indications that
issues related to immigration and citizenship will become less salient in the
near future. On the contrary, they are likely to become more important,
especially as the French mainstream Right (with Nicolas Sarkozy as a prime
example) also seeks to exploit them.
The future prospects for the Front National, however, hinge on more than
just demand-centred factors. As was noted above, populist movements are
charismatic in the sense that they try to base their appeal and legitimacy on
emotions rather than on reason. The Front National is no exception and
Jean-Marie Le Pen’s personality and appeal fit the description of a ‘charismatic
leader’ very well (Eatwell, 2005). Indeed, the Front National satisfies
several of the criteria of Angelo Panebianco’s (1988: 145) definition of a
‘charismatic party’: the party leader has an extremely strong influence over
appointments to central positions within the organization; he/she is the
main interpreter of the party’s political doctrine; the party includes a dominant
group united by its loyalty to the leader; internal career paths are
closed to those not favoured by the party leader, partly through elite recruitment
and partly through the imposition of a high degree of centralization;
the party is usually an anti-party party that presents itself as an alternative