I first met Jean-Marie Le Pen in the mid-1990s; I was writing my PhD on the far right, and was one of those dissident North American students who thought “having the data” wasn’t quite enough when it came to politics. Between 1994 and 2000 I interviewed him a good dozen times, sometimes in Brussels, sometimes at the Front National HQ, and a few times in his rather grand Saint Cloud mansion, which overlooked Paris in much the same way he did: from afar, and with a certain distaste. While it took quite a few letters to clinch the first interview, it then became easier. Was the academic research label non-threatening? Was it flattering? Or was it simply an era when the FN’s biggest and constant complaint was that they weren’t being given fair access to coverage by the media? How times have changed.
Over the past few days, and in the context of the feud between Le Pen and his daughter Marine, I decided to listen again to those interviews. I hadn’t done so in ages, and it wasn’t easy finding the technology to play these micro-tapes — very swish at the time, kind of “vintage” now. After quite a bit of fiddling and transposing, Jean-Marie’s voice came booming through: powerful, slightly overwhelming, unstoppable. In fact, the man would not shut up. Over the few hours it took me to listen to about half the tapes, I was struck by two things. One was the lying. I don’t mean ideologically monstrous stuff, of the Holocaust-denying type — I mean random lies that were easy to catch him out on: about how his father died (the account changes from one interview to the next), or simply about where he was, and when. I am struck by the bizarre bravado he consciously displayed. The world is as I say it is.
Above all, what came back was the unmistakable impression of someone who knew exactly what he was he doing: systematically, painstakingly, relentlessly conquering a political system. In the end, that’s probably what all these interviews gave me: an understanding of his strategy, and the astuteness of his reading of French institutions and how he could turn them to his advantage. Much as former president Francois Mitterrand had made the Fifth Republic his and then imposed its logic on the Socialists in the 1970s, so Le Pen was doing for the far right. He was disciplining the party, positioning himself as presidential candidate, federating diverse movements and smothering others. This wasn’t an easy task.
Populist parties thrive on their capacity to remain aloof from the political establishment they detest, or purport to detest. Becoming a legitimate contender threatens the crucial “freshness” of the outsider. On one occasion, as I was interviewing Le Pen pere in his study (covered in nautical memorabilia, gorgeous view of the capital), Marine came sauntering in. “Dad,” she said, “I’ve found the interview of the guy who says you carved up his leg during the Algerian war. I’ve got it downstairs on tape.” We followed her to the TV room. She switched on the tape. An elderly Algerian began his testimonial. “Of course I recognise him,” he said, “It was him [JMLP] who did this to me. You think I’d forget the face of a man who did this?” He pointed at his calf, a good portion of which bore a deep, ugly scar. Father and daughter burst out laughing. I can’t say I was particularly heroic in my protestations: I was frozen. “Can you believe the gall?” said Marine. “What an idiot.” “I should have done much worse to him,” said her dad.
It’s tempting to interpret this as the apple not falling far from the tree. And my sense, then and now, is that this woman was as ruthless and as ambitious as her father. It is on this that we need to focus: Marine Le Pen remains her father’s daughter in her capacity to read French institutions. Much as her father adapted to a strong Fifth Republic and the demands it made on political parties, so Marine has adapted to a weakening political system whose dynamics demand a different kind of engagement from populist parties. When mainstream parties are seen as no longer representing mainstream voters (with plummeting rates of turnout, fragmentation within parties, and a weakened presidential office), the returns are highest when you pretend to look like the mainstream that once was: Gaullism. The endless reading of ideological tea leaves strikes me as utterly pointless. Is she sincere in condemning her father? Is she covering up her true colours? Is the FN’s ideological conversion real or skin deep? Politically, these questions miss the point. This kind of internal transformation is always strategic.
Parties, in democracies, change when that change stands to get them more votes. More to the point, the motive is somewhat irrelevant because such transformations are extremely difficult to undo. Whether or not you “meant it” at the time doesn’t matter: you’re kind of stuck with it. Second, fuelling this argument right now is a boon for the FN: Whatever gratification others may find in the endless accusations that “a leopard doesn’t change its spots” — the fact is that this leopard is getting an awful lot of airtime and a never-ending string of opportunities to appear shocked in unison, renewed in its sense of collective condemnation. The old man is discredited, the slate is wiped clean — focus on the 2017 presidential contest (and with a lot less baggage). The disagreement between Jean-Marie Le Pen and his daughter has deep roots in the party’s history. It used to be a matter of two factions: Jean-Marie Le Pen, his niece (Marion Marechal Le Pen) and quite a few of the party faithful, keepers of a hardline, conservative, petit bourgeois, right wing flame, versus the partisans of a broader antiglobalisation sweep that could capture disaffected working-class votes — by turning to working-class themes and a focus on the euro and the costs of globalisation — while toning down the stridency on race and immigration.
The latter has been Marine’s strategy (much to her father’s not-so-silent chagrin). Classic hard right vs populism 2.0. But this has completely changed over the past few days. Perhaps as a result of the old man’s wish for a last provocative flourish? Perhaps in a more calculated set of exchanges designed to marginalise the traditionalist faction and silence it in the aftermath of a lacklustre result in recent local elections? The point is that Marine can have a clear-out, and everyone will now (more or less) sing from the same hymn sheet: hers. Most important for Europe is that Marine’s behaviour alerts us to the continued instability at the heart of the Fifth Republic. The immobilism imparted to the French political class by the FN will continue to conspire against reform, and against what Europe needs: a strong and decisive France at the heart of the Eurozone. The FN, in other words, is the canary in the Fifth Republic’s coal mine — and it is singing its heart out.
—Guardian News & Media Ltd
