An Analysis Of The French National Front-Transition And Its Reasons

As a far right political party in France,the National Front(Front National,FN),occupying the border side in the political spectra,possesses conservative opinions and radical catchwords with obvious populism and neo-racism.Surprisingly,it achieved an incredible development during the past few years and took over the place of the third influential political party right after the left wing(Socialist party)and traditional right wing(UMP,Union pour un mouvement populaire).Within a democratic modern country which advocates "liberty,equality and fraternity" like France,the FN attracts more and more citizens' attention and plays a role significantly more important,the reason of which calls for our deep research.This thesis focuses mainly on the transition of Front National,namely the FN after Marine Le Pen took over the former leader,her father' s position in 2011.During these years,some changes and reforms have taken place and led to a more successful FN.Therefore,what exactly contributed to the booming influence of FN becomes the key point of this paper.First of all,we are going to make a brief introcduction of the political party including the developing history and its nature to build a conceptual basis of this thesis.Secondly,the transition of this political party embodies in 5 aspects;adjustment of political proposal,reinforcement of political influence,expansion of electors,propaganda of new media,and promotion of"dedialbolization".These five aspects represent the main changes of Front National in two different eras.Thirdly,we shall step into the main part of the whole reason-analyzing process,and we will start from the international environment.Intense external situation plays an indispensable role in the boost of FN.With the deepening of European integration,the super-governmental institution which bounded each state member together begins to expose its malpractices.Furthermore,terrorist attacks frequently happening in France causes a social panic which impulses French people to confront to Muslims with fear and hatred.Last but not the least,the explosion of crisis of refugees in the whole Europe threatens the stability of the society and facilitates the wandering of the terrorists due to the Schengen agreement.From the perspective of French internal situation which allows FN to grow fast unprecedentedly.Slow economic recovery,broken social security system,severe contradiction between different classes,long standing inaction of the two main traditional parties and enormous Muslim immigration,all these social problems aggravate serious social crisis.High rate of unemployment and huge pressure of competitiveness enable the general public to rethink about their political preference when voting for representatives.From the perspective of the party itself,due to the negative influence that Jean-Marie Le Pen had made during his mandate,the "New FN",not satisfied with the position of party out of office,envisages the ruling power and thus,amelioration of the image becomes the turning point of its ambition.Marine le Pen attempts to achieve this goal by spreading the spirit of "dediabolization" and "normalization" in order to ease the defensive attitude of general public and re-arrange the structure of organization,therefore,we can say that this urgent need can be considered as an endogenous dynamic of the quick transition of this party.All in all,it is a combination of the mentioned aspects that pushes forward the constant development of FN.In spite of its populist nature,the rise of the political party depends radically on the support of the masses.Under the tight atmosphere of both internal and external environment,FN has more potential to stand steadily in French political field.