The “republican arc”, a concept “intended to exclude some from the field of political legitimacy”

2023-12-13 08:30:11
The founder of La France insoumise, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, is often designated by the presidential majority as being “outside the republican arc”. CHARLY TRIBALLEAU / AFP

History of a concept. ” This is unacceptable. For me, Jean-Luc Mélenchon put himself outside the Republican arc. » Collected on December 6 on RTL following a post from the leader of La France insoumise (LFI) on the social network ” shut your mouth » addressed at the end of the interview to the same Jean-Luc Mélenchon. However, the use by the President of the Senate of the expression “republican arc” also constitutes an interesting sign of the times.

What does the notion of “republican arc” cover? Used by the presidential camp since Emmanuel Macron’s first five-year term, and more and more regularly since the campaign for the 2022 legislative elections, it was then taken up on their own by other political actors – such as, here, the Republican Gérard Larcher. According to semiologist Cécile Alduy, professor at Stanford (California) and associate researcher at Cevipof, “it is first of all, with this expression, to describe the new tripartition of the political field, which would see a large “republican” field in the center and two “extremes” which would border it on either side” – on the far right with the National Rally, on the far left with La France insoumise.

Used by members of “government parties” to frame the debate, the expression allows them to place themselves in the continuity of previous presidencies, while disqualifying their more anti-establishment adversaries. But that is not its only advantage, believes Cécile Alduy. “It is also a way of creating a new, existential divide between those who would defend the Republic and republican values ​​in the broad sense, and a populist or anti-republican threat. It is therefore a concept for offensive use, intended to exclude some from the field of political legitimacy, depending on the debates. »

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Mobilizing voters by calling to defend the Republic and its values ​​is not a new strategy, far from it. Already under the Third Republic, supporters of the new regime got into the habit, in the second round of legislative elections, of withdrawing in favor of the best-placed Republican candidate. This “republican discipline” resurfaced and transformed throughout the 20th century, thanks to political upheavals. While in 1956 the Poujadist movement threatened to win the legislative elections, Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber thus gave the name of “republican front” to the center-left coalition that is being formed to block it. But it was from the 1980s, with the stabilization of the Lepenist vote, that the rhetoric of the “republican front” experienced the success it has known: from then on, right and left were supposed to withdraw one for the other. the other in the event of the presence in the second round of a National Front candidate.

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