2023-05-28 12:00:07
For semiologist Cécile Alduy, professor at Stanford (California) and associate researcher at the Center for Political Research at Sciences Po, the recent proposals of the Les Républicains (LR) party on immigration bring it very close to the National Rally (RN). But the two parties retain a difference in the conception of French citizenship, judges the author of Marine Le Pen taken at face value. Deciphering the new frontist discourse (Threshold, 2015).
How are LR’s words and proposals on immigration and the rule of law similar to those of the National Rally?
The speech ticks all the lexical clichés disseminated by Jean-Marie Le Pen in the 1990s: “migratory submersion”, “uncontrolled immigration”, “mass immigration”, the “decadence” of France. This is the ba-ba of the Lepenist breviary. The programmatic pane is an almost complete cut-and-paste. The most surprising, coming from the right, is the adoption of the change of the Constitution and the abolition of what LR describes as “supreme courts”. The withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights is included in the program of the National Front [ancien nom du RN] since a long time. The deconstruction of the rule of law and the emancipation of counter-powers constitute a serious and serious step in the evolution of a party which has given eminent members to the Constitutional Council. As for the idea of a “deep state”, it is closer to Trumpian rhetoric than Lepenist. It is populism with an illiberal tendency, which is part of a broader trend in Europe.
Does the LR party really go further than Nicolas Sarkozy during his 2007 presidential campaign?
From the point of view of rhetorical borrowings and the narrative of a France threatened in its identity, this is indeed nothing new: Nicolas Sarkozy has built his political profile on the copy-paste of this frontist narrative. But never in measurements. He acted as the Lepenist ventriloquist, without taking up its anticonstitutional proposals.
Are there nevertheless differences with the program and the discourse of the National Rally?
LR’s program stems from magical thinking, that of building a deterrent fortress. It does not have the same populist and xenophobic spring as that of the RN, which builds the opposition between “us” and “them”. The national priority is the programmatic aspect of the RN consisting in opposing categories of population who live in France. It implies that some inhabitants steal bread or jobs from others.
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