In a new article at Parliamentary Affairs, Aurelien Mondon sets out to take a different tack while examining the case of the French far right. To do this, instead of looking squarely at the far right, the article probes “the past 50 years through a lens that focuses on power and those in a particularly privileged position to shape the agenda and public discourse.”
This, Mondon argues, better accounts for the “central role of mainstream elites.”
Mondon calls the normal narrative “hegemonic defeatism,” and says it’s a story that goes like this: the rise of the far-right is inevitable, and so the democratic elites must themselves turn right. But this, Mondon argues, is a political reading. Another narrative is available by taking a longer view.
For example, discussions about “the rise of the FN/RN or the far right in general” often frame it “not only as something ‘irresistible’ … but as something that finds its source in the actions of the far right itself.”
In fact, Mondon goes on, “this argument does not even match basic electoral data, or at least their critical analysis.”
Take, for instance, the fact that turnout doesn’t factor in to discussions of elections: “Le Monde for example led with: ‘2024 European elections: above 30%, the RN wins a historic success ’… When turnout is accounted for, the RN ‘only’ received 16.5% of the vote, which is very concerning but far from a landslide.” But the idea that it’s a landslide can, in turn, encourage other voters to cast protest or more radical votes.
Enabling and Pandering
Mondon takes the argument a step further: “[R]ather than the irresistible rise of the FN/RN, what we have witnessed is the conscious enabling of far-right politics and discourse by the mainstream.”
And what’s more, “Despite the trend being live for decades, no President has proven as zealous as Macron in his attempt to defeat the far right by absorbing its discourse, while claiming to be a bulwark against it.”
More alarming still, the far-right has benefitted from this “pandering” to its discourse and its politics. Mondon goes further into Islamophobia as an example of this phenomenon.
Mondon essentially concludes that the “mainstreaming of far- and extreme-right politics poses a real threat to democracy and in particular to the communities at the sharp end of such politics. Yet while most mainstream actors agree with this statement publicly, this article claims that their actions not only point towards complacency when it comes to addressing this trend, but at times an active enabling.”
Thus, elite narratives about their own role in the process of the far right’s rise should face challenge.
