Pascal Perrineau

The Radical Right in the European Elections 2004

In the new EU member states, the European Parliament elections in June 2004 were anticipated with particular anxiety because of the role of anti-EU, nationalist, and extreme right-wing parties, which in some countries had scored signifi cant electoral successes in the recent past. But also in some of the old member states, the radical right was watched closely, in particular, after the French Front Nationals historic performance in the 2002 presidential election. Since the radical right feeds on the economic and social crisis and feelings of anxiety raised by EU integration, by globalization, and by anti-establishment feelings, many observers expected a general rise in support for these parties, especially in light of the growing complexity of the expanded EU. This article analyzes the electoral outcome for the radical right in the 2004 elections and discusses country-specifi c characteristics as well as regional patterns. It also looks at the role the radical right played, if any, in the votes on the new EU constitution in various member states. The article shows that, regarding the radical right, the European elections proved to be surprisingly unsurprising. Clearly, EU membership was not the only issue involved. Rather, larger issues of national identity, the strength of nationalist traditions, and some particular features superseded narrow foreign policy concerns and explain, more or less, the electoral success achieved by the radical right. Compared to the EU elections, the referenda on the EU constitution in several member states provided little to no opportunities for the radical right.

Politics in France and Europe

Political Representation in Crisis P.Perrineau Political Values and Attitudes in Europe E.Schweisguth Religion and Politics J.Donegani Gender and Politics J.Mossuz-Lavau Young People and Politics A.Muxel Interest Groups in France and in Europe E.Grossman Unions and Politics G.Groux Political and Administrative Elites L.Rouban The Media and the Search for Political Information A.Mercier What Remains of the Class Vote? N.Mayer The Green Movement D.Boy Socialism in Europe H.Rey The Political Right in France and Europe F.Haegel National-Populism P.Perrineau France and Europe L.Rouban

Nicolas Sarkozy: ‘Sarkozyism’, a New Presidential Leadership

When I analysed the nature of Nicolas Sarkozy’s election victory of May 2007, I identified the crucial capacity of Sarkozy as a candidate to root himself in a tradition of the national and republican right that brought together the areas once supporting Louis Napoleon Bonaparte (the greater Paris basin, the East and the extension of these areas to the south east), and later to combine this with republican nationalism, with a Barresian and Gaullist flavour (Perrineau 2008). This Bonapartist stamp, nationalist and Gaullist, evident in the electorate, was equally perceptible after the election victory and over the subsequent years, when I looked at the exercise of presidential power by Nicolas Sarkozy (Hefez 2008; Deldique 2008; Reza 2007; Lembeye 2008). What, then, are the principal characteristics of the exercise of this particular President’s power? How can the exercise of this form of power be classified when seen in the long-term perspective of French political regimes?

The Moment of Electoral Choice

The decision on who to vote for was presented as a standing decision in electoral sociology literature for a long time. The literature of electoral sociology has tended to represent individual voting behavior as relatively static over time. V.O. Key Jr, Franck Munger and Walter Dean Burnham all stressed that voting choices tended to be stable over long periods, rooted as they were in lasting and durable choices. However, this idea has been increasingly called into question with the acknowledgement of electoral volatility and the taking into account of short-term factors such as campaigns, candidate image, issues and so on. All of these have an impact on voting decisions, leading to a certain level of instability in voting intentions during a given campaign and from one campaign to another.

How Le Pen’s Electorate Lost Faith in Him

One of the essential elements in this election that broke with the past (Perrineau, 2008) and that paved the way to a comfortable victory for Sarkozy in the 2007 presidential election was the surprising erosion of the Le Pen vote. His support decreased from 4,804,713 votes in 2002 to 3,834,530 votes in 2007 representing a loss of 970,183 voters in spite of a strong increase in the number of registered voters on electoral lists (+3,278,145 voters) and the number of people who actually voted (+7,758,509). Le Pen who obtained 16.86% of the votes cast (11.66% of registered voters) on April 21, 2002, scored only 10.44% (8.62% of registered voters) on April 22, 2007 (Evans and Ivaldi, 2007; Fourquet, 2007; Mayer, 2007). The 2007 election was far removed from the electoral “shock” of 2002 when Le Pen eliminated Lionel Jospin and made it through to the second round. The extreme-right had already experienced such an electoral downturn in some European democracies but this usually occurred following a period in power. This was the case for the Freiheitliche Partei Osterreichs (FPO) in Austria and for the Liste Pim Fortuyin (LPF) in the Netherlands. After the exceptional success of the FPO in the 1999 legislative election (26.9% of votes cast, which was as high as the level attained by the right-wing party, the OVP), it entered the government headed by the conservative chancellor Wolfgang Schussel. After several years in government with the conservatives from the OVP, the FPO once again found itself at the level of the 2002 legislative election and then at 11% in the 2006 legislative election. It subsequently rose to 17.5% during the most recent legislative election in 2008 when it once again found a space for itself within the opposition. The situation was the same for the LPF, which obtained 17% of the vote in the 2002 legislative election and became part of a government formed by a union of right-wing parties (with the Christian Democratic Appeal, the CDA, and the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy, the VVD) headed by Jan Peter Balkenende. Its share of the vote then decreased once more to 5.7% in the 2003 legislative election and then to 0.2% in the 2006 election.