The Front National and the New World Order

Abstract

The ascent of the French Front National (FN) over the past decade derives from the party’s successful campaigning on several key issues accorded more weight by the electorate in recent years, notably immigration, unemployment and law and order. In this respect the FN is clearly a product of the times. However, the party’s origins lay in certain French historical traditions and the birth of the FN constituted also a response to some of the cleavages thrown up by the old post-war order. Founded in 1972, the FN could be seen in part as a reaction to the anti-authoritarian leftism of the 1960s and the new-found left-wing unity initiatives drawing together the French Communist Party (PCF) and the Parti Socialiste (PS). From the outset, the FN boasted a primary anticommunism and looked initially to the model of the Italian Social Movement (MSI) as a modestly successful example of anti-communist resistance. At the same time, many of the FN’s founder members and supporters had participated actively in wars — in Indochina and Algeria — against alleged communist influence.