Ni droite, Ni gauche, Français!

” Mainstream populism and the future

of Left/Right politics1
Marta Lorimer

European Institute, London School of Economics and Political Science

Correspondence address: [email protected]

Abstract: Drawing on the experience of the Front National, this article seeks to investigate how the
incorporation of far-right discourse in mainstream politics leads to the emergence of new divisions in politics.
In particular, it argues that by promoting the emergence of new dimensions in the political space, the ongoing
rise and mainstreaming of far-right political discourse presents a direct challenge to the traditional Left/Right
distinction.
The paper starts with the contention that far right ideology sits uncomfortably with the Left/Right distinction. At
its core is the belief in the centrality of the nation and the necessity to protect it. In recent years, this has been
increasingly complemented by a populist ideology, which pits ‘the people’ against ‘the (global) elite’. Both
concepts of the ‘Nation’ and the ‘People’ push forward a monist understanding of unity and cohesiveness which
denies the existence of political divisions, including that of Left and Right. As a result, far right parties have
started challenging the distinction, claiming to be ‘neither Left nor Right’ and actively proposing alternative
conceptualisations of the political space that do not presuppose internal division of the electoral body. The most
relevant of these distinctions is the division between ‘patriots’ versus ‘globalists’, which allows parties to tap
both into nationalist sentiments and broader opposition to globalisation and the mechanisms of change it
engenders. Importantly, this division, which could be dubbed as being between a ‘local/closed’ and a
‘global/open’ level cannot be ‘absorbed’ by the traditional Left/Right dimension and acquires a life of its own,
forming the basis of a programme set to attract constituencies on both sides.
The paper will conclude by suggesting that while Left and Right as ‘representations collectives’ may not have
not been replaced but rather complemented by this division between a local/closed and a global/open level, the
rise and mainstreaming of far right discourse will lead an increasing number of actors to question its
explanatory power.

***Preliminary draft chapter – Please do not circulate***

‘We have entered a new two-partyism. A two-

partyism between two mutually exclusive
conceptions which will from now on structure our
political life. The cleavage no longer separates left
and right, but globalists and patriots’ (Le Pen 2015)

The imminent or consumed death of Left and Right as categories in politics is nothing new. Declared
as dead already in 1842 (Ignazi 2003), this political division has been challenged regularly both in
academia and in the public realm. Brexit, the election of Donald Trump and the 2017 French election

1Paper presented at the Prague Populism Conference: Current Populism in Europe and the Role of the Media. A chapter
based on the presentation will be published in Herman, L. and Muldoon, J. Trumping the Mainstream: The Conquest of
Mainstream Democratic Politics by Far-Right Populism (Forthcoming)

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have become yet another occasion to question the relevance of the dichotomy and suggest the
emergence of alternative ways of thinking of politics and political divisions (see for example Sénécat
et al. 2016, The Economist 2017, Slaughter 2017, Goodhart 2017, Hooghe and Marks Forthcoming
2017).
Narratives of the decline of left and right and of its replacement have been particularly rife in the 2017
French presidential election. In an election where the main Left and Right candidates fared poorly, the
far right candidate’s most credible adversary was incarnated by Emmanuel Macron, the ‘both left and
right’ candidate which eventually went on to win the presidency. Macron, a former investment banker
and minister under Francois Hollande, represented, according to the Marine Le Pen and her supporters
a politician that could not be placed on a left and right political spectrum, but which required to bring
in a new political distinction: that between globalists and patriots. As she declared in an interview at
l’Invité Politique ‘There is no more right and left. The real cleavage is between the patriots and the
globalists, that Macron incarnates well’ (Le Pen 2017a). However, the emergence of this alleged new
cleavage is not new: Le Pen referred to it already following the regional elections in 2015, and one
can easily insert it in the party’s earlier attempts to present itself as ‘neither left not right, French’
(Maréchal 1996 ).
Drawing on the Front National’s experience, this article seeks to investigate the rationale behind this
the distinction between ‘globalists’ and ‘patriots’, and reflect on its viability and consequences on the
Left/Right distinction. In particular, it will argue that far right parties have several ideological and
strategic reasons to reject the Left/Right dichotomy, and replace it with a distinction that is more
fitting to their worldview, such as that between ‘globalists’ and ‘patriots’ advocated by the Front
National. While this new distinction may not be readily included in political analysis, it points
towards the emergence of a new cleavage between ‘open’ and ‘closed’ societies which in the long
term could represent a direct challenge both to the Left/Right distinction in itself, and to what it
embodies in symbolic terms2.

1) Left and Right: the meaning of a political distinction

The emergence of Left and Right as a political distinction is a heritage of the French Revolution, and
more precisely, of the Assemblee Constituante. During its vote on 29 August 1789, the Assembly had
to deliberate on the right of veto by the king. For the vote, supporters of the royal veto (conservatives)
were asked to stand to the right and opponents (modernisers) to the left, thereby giving birth to what
would become an enduring political division. While this did not happen during the French Revolution,
as the Revolutionnaires sought unity over division (Gauchet 1996), the division between Left and
Right entered the political vocabulary in a stable way during the Restauration, when it became the
standard way to refer to the opposition between liberals and ultras (Lukes 2003). Following their
adoption in French politics, the terms Left and Right spread throughout the rest of Europe and became
'categories of political identity' (Lukes 2003), as well as the dominant way to conceptualise the
political space. The increase in salience and spread of the two terms, however, did not settle two
questions which would continue to haunt the distinction for years to come: first, their intrinsic
meaning and second, their potential to endure the passing of time.
On the first point, settling the ‘meaning’ of Left and Right has been an ongoing challenge for scholars
of politics. In this case, one can distinguish between those who seek to contextualise the meaning of
Left and Right, and those who focus on an essentialist interpretation of it. ‘Essentialist’ interpretations
have sought to find features of Left and Right which have remained unaltered by time, considering,
like Laponce (1981) that ‘Better than conservative and liberal or progressive and reactionary,
left/right tends to describe background forces rather than specific actors; it describes a fixed landscape
rather than those who travel through it’. One of the dominant understandings of these ‘background

2 Note that this paper focuses on a supply side perspective, looking at how parties present that division, rather than how they
reflect it in sociological terms. Thus, it makes no claim to be an accurate reflection in terms of the sociology of voters.
Rather, it is interested in seeing parties as agents who try to shape the understanding of politics and create new cleavages in
discursive terms.

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forces’ is that brought forward by Norberto Bobbio (1994), who, for example, considered that the
Left and Right cleavage represented a division on notions of equality, with the Left privileging
equality of all human beings and the Right arguing in favour of a ‘natural order with inequalities’. As
far as the contextual understanding of the words go, one can recognise that through time, Left and
Right have meant different things at different times. Thus, if they initially referred to a distinction
between ‘liberals’ and ‘conservatives’, they acquired new meanings through time. The dominant way
to think of the meaning of the distinction since the 1960s has been to see it as a reflection of the
dominant social cleavage in Western societies, that is, the workers/owners cleavage posited by
Rokkan and Lipset (1967). Thus, the Left was taken to represent the interests of the workers, while
the Right would ultimately defend the values and interests of the owners. More recently, Ronald
Inglehart (2006 [1971]) posited the emergence of a new cleavage which would replace the class
cleavage. The new division between ‘materialists’ and ‘postmaterialists’ was expected to ‘transform
the meaning of Left and Right’ (Inglehart 1990) and bring on a new division. Inglehart’s
understanding, however, still maintained the relevance of Left and Right and a single line of conflict:
while he suggested that the materialist versus postmaterialist divide would eventually ‘displace’ the
understanding of the class cleavage as the basis of the distinction between Left and Right, he did not
question the validity of the distinction itself, but rather suggested that while the distinction would
remain, it would acquire a new ‘guiding principle.’ 3
If the meaning of the distinction between Left and Right has been contested, its continued relevance
has equally become a point of contention. The first references to its ‘loss of meaning’ can be dated
back to 1842, when the word’s entry in the French Dictionnaire du Politique declared that ‘these
ancient divisions have lost a lot of their value’ (quoted in Ignazi 2003). About two centuries after its
first declaration of irrelevance, the ‘end of ideology’ thesis suggested (again) that the Left-Right
dichotomy made little sense (Bell, 1988 [1960]; Bobbio 1994: 3). More recently, scholars have
considered that Left and Right fail to capture the increasing complexities of the modern world.
Giddens (1994), for example, urged to move ‘Beyond Left and Right’, thus contributing to the
creation of Tony Blair’s ‘Third Way’, while Furedi (2005: 49) declared that the words have simply
‘lost their meaning’, and would be further weakened by the emergence of non-aligned groups or
movements refusing to identify with them.
The 2017 French Presidential election brought the questioning of the Left Right dichotomy back into
fashion, with Emmanuel Macron running on a ‘both Left and Right’ platform and Marine Le Pen
claiming that Left and Right made no sense, and that the true division was between ‘globalists and
patriots’. Le Pen’s claim to be ‘neither Left nor Right’ and her suggestion of the emergence of a new
cleavage are of particular interest when reflecting on issues of the continued relevance of the Left
Right dichotomy, especially since this kind of neither left nor right discourse is a long-standing one
for the FN and a shared feature of far right parties (Enyedi and Krause 2010: 175). While they do not
all openly reject the language of Left and Right (although they sometimes do: see for example Haider
1997), they also do not refer to it explicitly to place themselves on the political map and prefer to use
different dichotomies. Thus, it is worth asking, first, what is the interest of adding a new dimension
and second, what could the consequences on politics be, especially given the integration of far right
discourse into mainstream politics?

2) Explaining the far right’s opposition to the Left/Right dichotomy

The first question one needs to answer is: What is it about Left and Right that pushes far right parties
to place themselves outside of the distinction or openly reject the dichotomy? Attempts by far right
parties to overcome the Left Right distinction and lead to the incorporation of a new dimension in the
understanding of the political space, I argue, are guided by four reasons: first, their ideological core is

3
While this was Inglehart’s initial idea, in many studies the ‘post-materialist’ cleavage and its variations (e.g. Hooghe et
al.’s 2002 Green/Alternative/Libertarian-Traditional/Authoritarian/Nationalist axis or Kriesi et al.’s 2006 ‘cultural’
dimension) have been studied as a separate axis intersecting with the left/right economic dimension and giving rise to two-
dimensional models of politics. However, while these are common among political scientists, political conflict in most
European societies still remained discursively presented mostly in terms of Left and Right.

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by definition, potentially both left and right. Second, at the heart of far right politics is a monist
understanding of the world which clashes with the understanding of Left and Right as symbolising a
legitimate division. Third, in more pragmatic terms, is the rejection of the negative connotation of the
term far right – which leads to question the distinction as a whole. Fourth, defining themselves as
‘neither left nor right’ allows for differentiation from the rest of the political spectrum and
presentation as ‘outside’ normal politics.
It is not the purpose of this chapter to review definitions of the far right, however, in order to elucidate
the first point, it is necessary to briefly discuss the ideological core of the far right party family. While
early studies have had a difficult time finding a common definition of the far right (see Mudde 1996
for a useful review of early definitions), in recent years a developing consensus has emerged on the
core elements of far right ideology. While some definitions are broader than others, virtually all
definitions of the far right comprise of at least one element, that of nationalism – or, as Cas Mudde
(2007) further specified it as to comprise xenophobia, ‘nativism’. The second shared ideological
feature of far right parties is often considered to be authoritarianism, embodied by the focus on law
and order (Mudde 2000, Harrison and Bruter 2011). Finally, for a specific sub-section of the far right,
it is possible to detect a final shared ideological trait in the shape of populism intended as ‘An
ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic
groups ― “the pure people” and “the corrupt elite” ― and argues that politics should be an expression
of the volonté générale or general will of the people’ (Mudde 2007).
While one may spend a long time discussing each of these elements separately, for the time being our
interest is to focus on their relation with the Left/Right division. In particular, what is important to
highlight about them is that in principle, they are neither attributes of the Left nor of the Right, but
may well be present in parties on both sides of the political spectrum. With respects to the first point,
nationalism, for example, one can detect it both in far right movements and movements of the left
(Halikiopoulou et al. 2012). Some might argue that in its ‘banal’ form, it is so diffused that it
permeates all strata of society (Billig 1995). Authoritarianism is equally ‘non-confessional’: The
history of dictatorship is rich in examples of this. Stalin or Ceausescu were arguably authoritarian
leaders at the head of an authoritarian regimes, however, few would qualify them as ‘far right’. For
those to whom it applies, populism equally displays this ambiguity, as all it requires is a ‘people’,
however defined, and an elite against which they must fight. Thus, recent years have displayed a
growing interest in populism as a phenomenon of the Left, as well as of the Right (see for example
March 2007 for a general analysis, Stavrakakis and Katsambekis 2014 on Syriza, Otjes and Louwerse
2015 on a comparison between left and right wing populism in the Netherlands). What this suggests is
that by definition, then, the far right does not sit ‘naturally’ anywhere on the Left and Right spectrum,
as its ideology suggests an (in principle) much more open possibility to sit on either side. This point,
however, is not decisive in the argumentation and needs to be complemented by further
considerations. While it points towards the fact that they could reject it, it does not explain why they
do so.
A stronger factor to explain why far right parties would reject the Left/Right dichotomy is connected
to their Weltanschauung and broader understanding of politics, which is inherently monist. Lipset and
Raab (1970: 6) powerfully argued that at the heart of political extremism is a form of anti-pluralism or
monism which treats ‘cleavage and ambivalence as illegitimate.’ On this basis, Rydgren (2007) argues
that far right parties push forward an understanding of the world which does not recognise legitimate
divisions and which rejects pluralism. In literature on the far right, this is often discussed as a
rejection of ‘liberal democracy’, and, one might add, of the role that the distinction between Left and
Right plays in it. If we accept that at the heart of modern democracy is the respect and embracing of
pluralism and conflicting views, the distinction between Left and Right can be seen as a ‘symbolic
rendition’ of these ideas (White 2012). Therefore, as Lukes (2003) puts it
The acceptance of left and right symbolises consent to discord--the
acceptance, that is, of political pluralism in one of its several senses: of
permanent, irreducible, institutionalised conflict as inseparable from
democracy and a rejection of the idea that such conflict is a pathological
deviation blocking the path to a unified, reconciled society.

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Following such a narrative, it is possible to understand why far right parties would reject the
vocabulary of Left and Right. The rejection of pluralism implies the rejection of any such thing as a
legitimate political divisions. The symbolism that Left and Right embody, then, becomes difficult to
accept and the rejection of the vocabulary of Left and Right points towards the rejection of political
division as constitutive of society. Put bluntly, far right parties reject Left and Right because they
symbolise an understanding of the political world which does not comply with their understanding of
it. Putting forward alternative divisions, in this case, is a way to present the political space in such a
way that allows them to overcome the notion of constitutive dissent embodied by the Left and Right
vocabulary.
Finally, it is worth considering the strategic incentives for far right parties to reject the distinction,
specifically, the rejection of the term ‘far right’ in virtue of its negative connotation and second, as a
tool of political differentiation. Hainsworth (2008:6-7) and Mudde (2007:33) noted that far right
parties use a vast array of different terms to define themselves. Their names usually include references
to blocs and movements, and while this is not necessarily exclusive to them as often parties do not
have a direct reference to their position on the Left/Right spectrum, mainstream parties are happy to
declare their positions as positions of the Left or of the Right (although that is not only the case – see
White 2010 for a discussion on the use of the label ‘Progressive’ to replace that of Left). Far right
parties, on the contrary, do not self-identify, either in their names or in their discourse, as ‘of the
extreme right’ and will openly reject the label. One can see this reticence to adopt the label ‘far right’
as dictated by two factors. One can see the ‘far right’ label’s negative connotation as stemming from
both its ‘right’ and its ‘far’ component. On the former, the ravages of the Fascist and Nazi regimes in
Europe left the Right with a bad name in post-war Europe’s early years. Democracies in Western
Europe often came out of power compromises which included the centre and the left, while excluding
right wing parties. While this reading is debateable, especially as far as the later years of European
politics are concerned, this idea of a ‘left-wing cultural hegemony’ has been strongly perceived by
intellectual strands of the far right. Suffice it to think of the Nouvelle Droite’s claims to range a
‘metapolitical battle’ against the dominant current of Left-wing thinking in the public space. Extreme
(or far, or radical) has equally negative implications in these parties’ views: the association with
Nazism and Fascism is still toxic to a large extent, especially for those parties who do not recognise
themselves as deriving directly from those traditions – as is the case for parties of the ‘new extreme
right’ (Ignazi 2003), which do not retrace their ideological roots to the Fascist or National-Socialist
regimes. Thus, they perceive the label of extreme as a means to delegitimise them, or, as the FN’s
2002 programme put it, a way for the ‘establishment’ to ‘demonise the national movement politically
and electorally.’
Secondly, always in strategic terms, far right parties, and especially those who associate their
nationalism with a thin ‘populist’ ideology, privilege the ‘outsider’ position in politics. In this sense,
the rejection of the Left and Right dimension allows them to present themselves as ‘unconcerned’
with regular politics, or as true outsiders. To explore this argument, it is necessary to reflect on the
role of Left and Right in the structuring of the political debate. As argued earlier, Left and Right
represent the norm when it comes to the political debate and the positioning of parties on a spectrum.
In this sense, they embody ‘regular’ politics (White 2010). Far right parties, on the other side, not only
are commonly placed ‘outside’ regular politics (albeit increasingly less so), but they also gain from
this appearance of being outsiders, especially in times of low trust in the political class. As parties
who have rarely (if ever) been involved in the dirty business of politics, they exploit the idea that they
are ‘pure’ and ‘uncontaminated’ by the workings of ‘regular’ parties. Rejecting the Left/Right
dichotomy, then, enhances their position as outsiders. It suggests that they are not debating on the
‘Left and Right’ issues that other candidates discuss (and which they present as irrelevant) but on the
‘true’ issues that really matter. In addition, the rejection of Left and Right and replacement with a
cleavage of their choice, allows them to present their opponents as ‘all the same’: if Left and Right do
not exist, and the cleavage is a different one, they can lump their opponents into a single side. Thus,
they become the only ‘truly different’ candidates and can play the card of ‘change’.

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In the following section, I will explore more closely how the Front National, the archetype
(Vasilopoulou, 2010) of the far right party, has rejected the label of left and right, trying to replace it
with a new political distinction: that between ‘globalists’ and ‘patriots.’

3) From neither left nor right to ‘globalists’ versus ‘patriots’

The discussion in the first section highlighted that the terms Left and Right were born in France, and it
is perhaps not surprising that France is also where they have been extensively contested. The most
well know forms of opposition to the Left/Right cleavage can be found in the doctrine of French
Fascist thinkers who abided by the doctrine of ‘ni-nisme’ (Sternhell, 1987) and, in a radically different
form, in the ideas of Charles de Gaulle, who notably sought to overcome partisan divisions in the
name of higher ‘national interest’ (Fysh, 1997).
As far as the Front National is concerned, its complex relationship with the concepts of Left and Right
starts, mostly, with the rejection of the label of extreme but the acceptance of the label ‘right’. In fact,
while the party has rejected the label of extreme since it rose to prominence in the national debate, it
has, in its early years and up until the early nineties, been open to declaring itself ‘of the right’. This
willingness to situate itself on the political spectrum should be read in the context of dualism brought
forward by the Cold War, where the FN’s stark anti-communism led the party to place itself squarely
in the camp of the enemies of the Left. It is not until the mid-nineties that ‘ni-nisme’ made its
(re)appearance in France – albeit only briefly.
In 1996, Samuel Maréchal, a prominent member of the Front National de la Jeunesse (and son-in-law
of Jean-Marie Le Pen), published a book famously titled ‘Ni droite, ni gauche, francais!’ The book,
described as ‘a love message to all the French, regardless of their political, social, provincial,
philosophical or religious origins’, already allows to observe some of the elements discussed in the
previous paragraph. Firstly, it opens on a chapter that essentially presents the political class as being
‘all the same’, and focused on maintaining power rather than acting in the interest of the French.
Secondly, it depicts the left/right cleavage as an ‘infernal cleavage’ and a ‘permanent civil split
[fracture]’, highlighting the party’s monist understanding of politics and the rejection of political
conflict as intrinsic to modern democracy. These two points are discussed in several parts of the
books, and often together, as in the following example:
Rather than for the interests of the Left or the Right, we prefer to fight for the interests of the
French. We do not sacrifice ourselves to this strange habit of politicians, who manipulate
perfectly the Left/Right semantic in electoral times. As they cannot fight on programmes, they
call upon a part of the people against the other and take advantage of this fight which they are
the main creators of. (Maréchal, 1996: 37)
Thus, what Maréchal does in this case is suggest first, that the French all share the same interests –
and that the separation between left-wingers and right-wingers is the artificial creation of a political
class. This, in turn, represents the starting point to present the FN as a radically different party,
working on the basis of a different cleavage:
Jean-Marie Le Pen’s movement is nor a RPR situated more to the right or more to the left; it
places itself elsewhere […] It is therefore tacitly – but explicitly – accepted that the Front
National is outside the political class (Maréchal, 1996: 41-41)
Maréchal’s position on Left and Right can be resumed with the metaphor, which both opens the book
and can be found later on that ‘The Front National is neither the left-wing nor the right-wing of
politics. It is the bird. Simply’ (Maréchal, 1996: 59).
The ‘resuscitation’ of ni-nisme was not uncontroversial, and raised opposition within the party on
three grounds. Firstly, certain sectors of the party were concerned about the fact that ‘ni-nisme’
facilitated parallels between the Front National and Fascism. Secondly, the rejection of the label
‘Right’ suggested that the party was abandoning its ideological background (Dely, 1996). One can
read this as concern about the fact that the party might be more open minded about the Left and its
Communist embodiment. Finally, a smaller fraction of the party feared that ‘ni-nisme’ would lock the

6
FN out of alliances with the main right-wing party, leading it to a career in the opposition, with no
hope of holding government. Thus, it was abandoned, in favour of a continued placement on the
Right – albeit a different kind of Right when compared to the mainstream4.
‘Ni-nisme’ has, nevertheless, come back into fashion ever since and indeed acquired a prominent
position in Marine Le Pen’s 2017 campaign. In particular, ni-nisme has moved onwards to become
something else. Rather than just representing a rejection of Left and Right, it has become the basis for
a new cleavage, that between ‘patriots’ and ‘globalists’. The clearest expression of Le Pen’s
understanding of this new cleavage is expressed in her speech at the Assises de Lyon, the meeting
where she started her presidential campaign:
We welcome all those who share with us the love for France and who want to bring our
country on the road to national recovery.
We can see it, the ancient debate between Left and Right has had its day. The primaries have
shown that the debates on secularism and immigration, as well as those on globalisation and
generalised deregulation, constitute a transversal and fundamental cleavage.
This cleavage no longer opposes the right and the left, but the patriots and the globalists.
In this election, we represent the patriots.
What moves us is not the love for money or individual interests, but concern for the
homeland, it is not a hollow and disembodied vision of the world but a multipolar world rich
in diversity, in peoples and in their own spirit.
We ask all patriots of the left and of the right to join us. Elected officials or simple citizens,
wherever you come from, whatever your past commitments have been, you have a place on
our side.
Patriots, you are welcome!
The collapse of traditional parties and the disappearance one by one of almost all of their
leaders show that the great political recomposition has started. (Le Pen, 2017b)

There are several points worth noting in the above passage. First of all, it marks a step forward
compared to Marechal’s view discussed in the previous paragraphs. While both visions point towards
a decline of Left and Right, ni-nisme was aimed mostly at presenting a unified nation in face of an
opportunist political class. On the other side, Le Pen places herself more squarely in a new dichotomy,
that of ‘patriots’ versus ‘globalists’. This is presented as a ‘transversal and fundamental cleavage’ –
and the focus here needs to be put on the notion of transversal. It points towards a willingness to open
to constituencies beyond the party’s regular ones, and represent ‘all patriots’. Thus, it is presented as a
unifying motion in the process of ineluctable ‘recomposition’ of the political space.
In opposition to her understanding of ‘patriots’ it is worth taking a look at the definition of the
‘globalists’, discussed in an earlier segment:
Our leaders have chosen unfettered globalisation. They wanted it to be positive, it has been
awful.
Coming exclusively from some people’s search for hyper-profit, it has developed at two
levels, lower level globalisation through massive immigration, the lever of global social
dumping, and higher level globalisation through the financialisation of the economy.

4 On this, the party’s 2002 manifesto is particularly informative when it says (scare quotes in original): ‘The National Front
brings forward values that transcend eras and fashions. The left, essentially negative, whose master word will always be
destruction, is by definition incapable of founding a durable social order. The “liberal” right, contracted on an egoistic
individualism as negative as socialism, has shown after the years of economic growth, the limits of its abilities of “manager”.
[…] When Jean Marie Le Pen, on 6 September 1992, declared in front of the Reims cathedral: “we swear to defend the
freedoms, independence, identity of the French people, its culture, language, humanist and Christian civilisation”, he showed
that the National Front has made its own the heritage felt by each French at the heart of himself: that is the philosophy, the
real one, the only one that forms the basis of the fight of the national, popular and social right that we incarnate.’

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 Globalisation, which started off as a fact due to increased exchanges, has been made into an
ideology: economic globalism that refuses all limitations, all regularisation of globalism and
that, because of this, has weakened the immune defences of the Nation, depriving it of its
constitutive elements: borders, national currency, legal authority on the conduct of its
economy, allowing another globalism to be born and grow: Islamic fundamentalism.
The latter has grown within a deleterious communitarianism, borne out of the mass
immigration our country has been subjected to year after year […]
The first in the name of globalised finance, that is, the ideology of absolute commerce, the
other in the name of a radicalised Islam, that is, the ideology of absolute religion. (Le Pen,
2017b)
The definition of globalists is even more informative than that of patriots, as it identifies very clear
enemies. In fact, if nationalists may wish to remain sketchy in their definition of who the in-group is
(Mudde and Kaltwasser 2013), especially in electoral times when they are trying to enlarge their
voting basis, identifying enemies is an essential point in creating a sense of unity. In this case, the
selection of ‘outsiders’ in the form of ‘globalists’ is of great interest because it lumps together a
traditional enemy in identitarian terms (Islamic fundamentalism) with a revised version of the
‘rootless cosmopolitan’ embodied by ‘economic globalism’. In this way, it unites cultural and
economic concerns in the same group of ‘enemies of the people’.
Two questions about this new distinction require some attention: first of all, why did it appear now?
Secondly, what purposes does it serve? On the first point, it could be said that it came out as a feature
of the campaign now as a reaction to the rise of Emmanuel Macron as a credible challenger. While the
rise of Macron could explain why it became a prominent feature in the 2017 presidential campaign, it
should be noted that this narrative already started appearing in 2015, following the regional elections.
Thus, it is perhaps more pertinent to see it as serving a specific purpose and addressing precisely the
concerns discussed earlier that would lead far right parties to reject the Left and Right distinction.
In fact, the symbolic power of the distinction between ‘patriots’ and globalists’ is multi-faceted and
overcomes several of the shortcomings that the Left/Right distinction poses for far right parties. First
of all, it addresses the obvious issue of the ‘negative framing’. While the distinction between
‘nationalist’ and ‘patriot’ is not always as clear-cut, ‘patriot’ has a positive connotation in most
societies, as it suggests a ‘respectable’ and (potentially) non-exclusionary attachment to the homeland.
As Viroli (1995: 2) put it:
The language of patriotism has been used over the centuries to strengthen or
invoke love of the political institutions and the way of life that sustain the
common liberty of a people, that is love of the republic; the language of
nationalism was forged in late eighteenth‐century Europe to defend or
reinforce the cultural, linguistic, and ethnic oneness and homogeneity of a
people.
Privileging the term of ‘patriots’ over far right, or even over ‘nationalists’ (a term which, however, not
all members of the party openly refuse), then, allows the party to present itself as both respectable,
open, and in line with recent political discourse, as defending republican values.
Secondly, it allows the party to present itself as outside the ‘usual’ line of division in politics, that of
left and right, and therefore, as an option for renewal. This was already apparent in Marechal’s vision,
and reinstated by Le Pen when referring to a ‘recomposition’ of politics. The addition of an alternative
division between patriots and globalist adds to this idea of renewal, but maintaining a familiar way of
thinking. Instead of suggesting a negative approach (as a ni-niste doctrine would), it rephrases the
dichotomy in positive terms, suggesting that there is a new line of political conflict. While it does not
imply the recognition of conflict as a respectable form of politics, it still allows for familiar
dichotomist thinking.
Thirdly, it allows to capture a distinction which does not separate the electoral body in two and which
pushes towards natural national unity. In fact, while the existence of a dichotomy may suggest a
separation of the political body, ‘Globalists’ are outsiders by definition, as they, (just like the Jewish
‘rootless cosmopolitans’ of the past), are citizens of nowhere. On the other hand, the patriots are

8
united in front of the foreign enemy and no divisions exist between them because they are all driven
by the same interest in the Nation. Thus, whether Left or Right in the past, they are all now united
against the external threat posed by the ‘globalists’, dovetailing the monist view of far right parties
Finally, and perhaps, most importantly, this distinction allows the party to tap both into nationalist
sentiments and cultural anxieties, as well as into broader opposition to globalisation and its economic
consequences. It incorporates economic and cultural issues, reading them through the lenses of ‘doing
what is good for the Nation’ – a vision which, as highlighted in the earlier parts of this chapter, need
not be Left or Right. Thus, it can bring together both the economic ‘losers of globalisation’ and those
whose main concerns are of a cultural nature – whether this be defined as fear of ‘population
replacement’ or loss of French values. By doing so, it also presents a point of convergence with the
extreme left, opening the potential for the far right to recruit even on the opposite side of the political
spectrum. This final point is potentially crucial and representative of the FN’s attempted
transformation, under Marine Le Pen, into a ‘party of government’. As Ivaldi (2016) correctly points
out, since Marine Le Pen’s accession to the head of the Front National, fight for office has become a
strategic goal for the party which, given the nature of the two-round electoral system, requires parties
to recruit beyond their own voting basis or create electoral coalitions. The construction of a ‘patriotic’
camp serves this purpose: it pushes to break partisan lines in the name of a shared commitment
towards the ‘Patrie’, implying that the interest of the country is understood in the same way across
partisan lines. While electoral studies point towards the fact that the FN’s electorate still broadly
defines itself as ‘of the right’, it does also gain votes from self-defined centrists and extreme left
voters (Veugelers 1997; Mayer 2013), and an appeal to this rhetoric could have the potential to rally
further beyond party lines.

4) On the consequences: the displacing of political debates

The distinction between ‘globalists’ and ‘patriots’ is a self-styled distinction. One might, therefore,
wonder if it of any relevance to thinking of the political space: is the new cleavage only in the eye of
the beholder, or does it point towards something worth watching? The answer to this question must be
qualified. The division between globalists and patriots seems to cohere towards another one which is
sometimes raised in the literature: a division between ‘open’ and ‘closed’ societies (Meunier 2015),
with the ‘open’ part of the cleavage being in favour of open societies, both in economic and cultural
terms, and the latter privileging protectionist views in the economic sector and less openness to
foreigners and outsiders. While one could mistakenly think of this as a variation on the post-
materialist cleavage, or the ‘losers of globalisation’ argument (Kriesi et al. 2006), it is important to
stress that it is not the same. While overlap does exist with both, it is very similar to a synthesis of the
two. The post-materialist cleavage either flanked the Left Right cleavage or was expected, as
discussed earlier, to replace the underlying ‘economic’ meaning of that distinction. Thus, it was a
primarily cultural division, or at least one which proposed to overcome economics as a drive. On the
other side, the losers of globalisation thesis focuses too heavily on economic inequality alone
(Inglehart and Norris 2016), without considering that economic and cultural arguments can have the
same effect but different drives. What this cleavage suggest, however, is the overcoming of Left and
Right and the absorption of cultural and economic dimensions into a single line of division.
A final question concerns the possibilities and implications of including this new dimension into the
analysis of politics. On the first point, it is doubtful that this division will be readily incorporated in
the political debate or in political analysis. Left and Right are likely to remain the main forms of
‘representations collectives’ (Lukes, 2003: 608) in European politics. They have proven highly
resilient throughout the years (Knutsen 1995, Kim and Fording 2001) and could prove difficult to
replace. In this scenario, what is more likely is that this division will continue to exist as a parallel,
rather than intersecting, dimension of politics, appealed to by far right leaders, but with little traction
outside. What is problematic about this is that the existence of multiple dimensions of conflict is
likely to make political contestation increasingly complex and unmanageable. As Hooghe et al (2002)
pointed out, "Contestation among political parties is limited to one or two dimensions. This renders
competition among parties institutionally and intellectually tractable.” The rise of a new dimension of

9
contestation, especially in virtue of the mainstreaming of far right discourse, could make competition
cacophonic. Especially in the case of non-intersecting dimensions, it could lead to conflicts in which
rather than talking to each other, contestants talk across each other.
However, as this book highlights, recent tendencies in European politics have demonstrated an
increased likelihood of the fringe to move into the mainstream and even become the mainstream.
Thus, it is not impossible that the growing weight of far right rhetoric could lead the mainstream to
engage with it or even to adopt this new form of rhetoric, leading to an increased questioning of Left
and Right as the main dimension for political contestation. A quick look at the newspaper coverage of
the French election suggests that this is not implausible: the results of the election have been often
read though the lenses of new dualisms, and Emmanuel Macron, the opponent of Marine Le Pen, even
went so far as to claim that the new distinction was between the ‘patriots’ and the ‘nationalists’.
Should this new language take hold, what would the implications for the future of politics in Europe
be? In this case, it is pertinent to reflect on what Left and Right symbolise. Gauchet (1996: 290)
famously argued that the Left/Right dichotomy ‘symbolises membership in a society whose law is
division. It provides the symbolic vector that makes possible what would otherwise be highly
improbable: identification with a fragmented collectivity.’ Left and Right, he argues, are powerful
markers because they both symbolise division, but as part of a continuous spectrum of options.
Eliminating this dichotomy, then, would risk breaking that understanding and transforming societies
into a mixture of divided groups with no aggregating point, leading to potential blockage and
unsolvable conflicts.
In either case, the future of politics looks increasingly complex. While Left and Right may not be
gone for good, they are likely to face competition and, should they be abandoned, lead to a
fundamental rethinking of the nature and dynamics of political contestation.

V. Conclusion
The stated aim of this chapter was to reflect on the relationship between far right parties and the
Left/Right cleavage. In particular, it has investigated the main reasons why far right parties may wish
to reject the division between Left and Right and potentially suggest to replace it with a new division.
The specific case of the FN was then used to show how the party has sought to challenge the notions
of Left and Right, and replace them with a new division of its own making, that between ‘globalists’
and ‘patriots’. The paper concluded by reflecting on the possible implications for a society in which
Left and Right would be flanked or overcome by this new division, suggesting that the elimination of
Left and Right as a structuring division in politics could lead to ever increasing fragmentation of the
political debate.
A final point of reflection left to the readers concerns the extent to which far right parties may wish to
truly overcome the Left/Right cleavage, or if it serves their purpose to have it in place as an ‘Other’ of
the sorts, which allows them to construct their own image as ‘outsider’ parties. The earlier parts of
this chapter suggested that as outsiders in the system, far right parties reject Left and Right. What it
also suggested is that they thrive on this position. Thus, the effective overcoming of Left and Right
may not serve their best interests, as it would put them back into the domain of ‘regular, albeit ‘new’
politics. While far-right politics may be increasingly becoming the new mainstream, it is not yet fully
clear if far right parties will be able to thrive as part of it.

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