Marine Le Pen: 'Vive la France'!

This weekend Marine Le Pen proposed a new name for her party Front National: Rassemblement  National. This proposal is part of a longer rebranding strategy of Le Pen. She wants to get rid of the extreme-right image of the party. If the history of this new name - Rassemblement  National was the name of one of the French collaborationist parties under the Vichy regime of World War II - is indicative of that modernization, it does not promise any 'deradicalization' at all. 

Le Pen, like father, like daughter?

In 1972, the French far-right party Front National was founded by Jean-Marie Le Pen. The party was founded to unite various different French nationalist groups together. Jean-Marie Le Pen was known for his extreme-right and provocative statements. For example, in 1987 he said that “gas chambers used to kill Jews in the Holocaust were “merely a detail of history”” (Chrisafis, 2015)

Marine Le Pen, Jean-Marie’s daughter, studied law at the Pantheon-Assas university in Paris. She has been a member of the party since she was eighteen years old. In 2011, Marine Le Pen became president of the party. Her aim is to 'de-radicalize' the party and turn her back on the “anti-Semitic overtones” (Chrisafis, 2015) the party once endorsed. However, as the name of the party already suggests, the party is still very nationalistic. Front national values economic protectionism, opposes immigration and has grown to be more sceptic towards the European Union throughout the years.

The less radical image of the party does seem to work: the party has been growing ever since Marine Le Pen became president and in the last elections she beat her own record by getting more than 21% of all the votes (Sergent, 2017).

Marine Le Pen’s Message “Au nom du peuple”

Le Pen’s slogan is “Au nom du peuple’’, which translates to “In the name of the people”. With this she claims everything she is doing and will be doing, will be with the French people and for the French people. But with only 21 percent of the votes, this claim is obviously not true. On her presidential campaign website, she stated that she would have been restoring France in order by carrying out the next eight points:

• Restore territorial, monetary, economic and legislative independence;
• Restore a strong state and re-establish the republican order everywhere;
• Reaffirm French values ​​and the rules of secularism;
• Promote work, defend purchasing power and develop French employment;
• Organize tax justice and efficiency in the management of public money;
• Saving Social Security and guaranteeing pensions;
• Promote high quality education and training;
• To find an influential diplomacy at the service of the power of the country.

These points would have to make France and the lives of its people better and so restore France as a country in the way Le Pen wants. Her way to win votes is to say she is doing everything in the name of the French people, but that would apply to a small amount of the French population, since most people do not support her. She said that to really change France, the start will come from the people, that is to say from the heart of the country. This is the first factor that points towards populism, which we will get back to later in this article.

Image and Message Politics showed in Media

Manu Brabo

Through the media, Marine Le Pen was able to portray a character that demonstrates her image, message, and style (Lempert & Silverstein, 2012). Her identity expressed in media is a strategy of political marketing and branding to create more attention to the idea of her political character.

On various social media platforms, she had displayed the political message she wanted to send across to the audience. She's had demonstrated on numerous occasions that she has an empathic, strong and nurturing character. For example, the image she posted on her Twitter page of herself and a baby (figure 1). According to this image, it demonstrates her desire to be the leader of the people as she stands up close with the locals in France. Le Pen is performing a trait of being an understanding person towards her audience. The reason behind this interpretation is based on the gestures of leaning in and smiling, displaying that she wants to know the issues to act upon and find the solution for her people. The concept of 'issues and solving it' matters as this idea of improving society is appealing, and in addition to that, it embraces her image to show the moral value acted by Le Pen. Furthermore, her intonation and embodiment of the discourse “in name of the people” draw off from the image as well.

On this image displayed on Le Pen’s Twitter page (figure 1), the embodiment is not the only factor that comes into play. It is also the appearance that creates this certain style which portrays Le Pen’s identity. The item of clothing she wears such as the navy blue blazer with simple long black pants depict the image of the simplicity, focused and a successful women character. With all the elements of gestures, discourse, and dress-code, it demonstrate the trait of being trustworthy according to Le Pen's political character towards the public that follows her in the media.

Using the example illustrated above (figure 1), the image and message have helped Le Pen’s identity and her party to appear deradicalized. It is deradicalized because she and her party are viewed as being an extreme right and then the image and message, later on, demonstrates that she and her party are fair and understanding. Furthermore, her campaign slogan “in name of the people” also helps to support this fair and understanding image to the audience. Both the twitter and slogan example ties into Le Pen’s populism. The narrative framework suggested that she acts as the leader and the representative of the French. However, Le Pen’s political view on being right-wing, anti-immigrant, anti-globalization contradicts to how most French people think. The majority of the French prefer the liberalist, central left-wing, and globalize idealism based on Emmanuel Macron’s victory in the 2017 presidential election. Therefore her claim to be “in name of the people” can be true to Le Pen and her party, but not to the majority French population.

Another example of Le Pen's and media is her tweet: “Bonnes vacanes à tour les chats…et à lemurs maîtres MLP #JournéeInternationaleDuChat”, which means good holiday to all cats and their masters (figure 2). This tweet portrays Le Pen’s sense of humour and creates this character of her being down to earth. This sense of humour can be picked up by her audience and create a sense of charm to make them become her supporters in the future political event. This demonstrates how online media, such as Twitter, can also aid in deradicalising her image of being an extreme right politician to a normal citizen who loves cats and is compassionate.

However, many people can mediate the message portrayed in various ways whether it’s positive or negative. Of course, her supporters will see her message as being positive through the character she has created. Meanwhile, the resistance may see her message as being negative in terms of not taking politics seriously or making herself out to be a populist like Donald Trump through discussing irrelevant matters. Fundamentally, when media and politics mix together it becomes political marketing that indices the discourse of the politicians through their signs of action, speech act and appearance.

Marine Le Pen as a populist

Twitter Marine Le Pen

Does all this talking about ‘the people of France’ (as can be seen in figure 3) make Marine Le Pen a populist? Populism is a complex concept. The label of ‘populist’ changes throughout the years. Populism was used to describe left winged parties, but now the concept seems to focus on extreme right winged parties (Maly, 2017).

Populism is thus best understood as a communicative frame and not as an ideology. Populists have to pretend to speak the voice of the people. This does not mean that they actually speak the voice of the people. You can see how Le Pen mobilizes 'the people' to create legitimation for her (radical) discourse. Her voice is what occupies the minds of her base. Revoicing that voice, how radical, racist or antidemocratic it may be, is then framed as being democratic. As mentioned above, her slogan is ‘Au nom du peuple’. Le Pen tries to connect to the people partly through social media platforms. In figure 1 Le Pen shows her ‘love’ for the people. She tries to show the woman behind the politician. Le Pen is trying to bring across that she is thus part of ‘the people’.

We believe we can label this as populism. We can see characteristics of Vox populism, but also of algorithmic populism. The style of communication that matches Vox populism is interaction and entertainment (Maly, 2017). Le Pen is interacting with her target audience through the use of social media and by appearing on television shows. Another characteristic of Vox populism is ‘clintonification’ (Maly, 2017), which means showing the person behind the politician. We can see that Le Pen is doing this as well, by posting pictures like in figure 1 and 2. She is not only talking about the issues in society, but also presenting herself as a lovable, dedicated and motherly person. Another thing that Le Pen is doing online, is trying to facilitate the people’s voice on these social media (figure 4). This indicates that next to Vox populism, algorithmic populism plays a role as well. 
 

Enlightenment or Anti-Enlightenment?

Marine Le Pen is claiming to be a democrat, which can be seen in figure 3. She states that 'we are a democratic party' (figure 3). But is this the truth? What is it exactly that is behind Marine Le Pen’s ideology? Can we say that she speaks Enlightenment talk or even anti-Enlightenment talk? To answer these specific questions, we will need to take a look at her ideas and place this next to the ideas of the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment is a period in history which changed people’s point of view on people and the world we live in. The human being became central in the world. An individual with rights should be at the basis of politics, if we believe in Enlightenment talk (Sternhell, 2009). The keyword behind the Enlightenment is equality. The new vision on the world during the Enlightenment meant that people should be equal. Without equality, there is no freedom. Equality should come before any kind of law. This also means that individuals possess universal human rights, which should not be allowed to be violated. However, the opposing ideology is the anti-Enlightenment, which revolves around organic nationalism (meaning organic ‘natural’ nations make up the world), inequality is natural, anti-materialism and anti-universalism.

Marine le Pen’s discourse shows similarities to anti-Enlightenment talk. She speaks in a nationalistic and anti-universal manner. We can see this, for example, in her Twitter banner in figure 4. This also comes back in many of her Tweets and Facebook posts. Another thing that points towards anti-Enlightenment talk is her preaching for inequality. Marine Le Pen does not believe that immigrants should take advantage of France by living in the support of the French government. She has even said:

“More and more are coming from the third world, taking advantage of our benefits. It’s a choice of civilization. I will be the president of those French who want to continue living in France as the French do.” from an interview at the rally in Marseille (Times, 2017).

Le Pen seems to care for her people and her country more than for immigrants who are known to be the outsiders of France (figure 5). In figure 5 she states that she is fighting for 'France and the French people'. This quote strengthens our claim that Marine Le Pen is nationalistic. Thus, her values and views have shown an opposing ideology regarding the Enlightenment idea. Therefore the anti-Enlightenment idea suits her view of democracy the best. This indicates that Marine Le Pen wants a different kind of modernity than the ideas of the Enlightenment prescribe (Sternhell, 2009). Although she claims to be a democrat (figure 3), she seems to want a different kind of democracy. Marine Le Pen is a nationalist politician, she is opposed to the idea of immigrants (see the quote from the rally in Marseille) and globalization where materials are reached out towards everyone.

This indicates that Marine Le Pen wants a different kind of modernity than the ideas of the Enlightenment prescribe (Sternhell).

Le Pen, the anti-democrat

Since Marine Le Pen became president of Front National in 2011, her aim is to de-radicalize the party with the intention of gaining the support of more people. Although the party is, under the reign of Marine Le Pen, still very nationalistic, this new approach seems to work. Front National has never had more supporters than during the current presidency of Marine Le Pen.

Le Pen tries, with various ways, to win the hearts of the people of France, in order to receive their votes. Marine Le Pen said that to make in change in France, the start has to come from the people, in other words, from ‘the heart of the country’.

The media is also used by Marine Le Pen to reach out to the people. She uses the media to portray a character of herself. A character that demonstrates her image, message and style. Her identity expressed in media is a strategy of political marketing and branding to create more attention around her political character. In short, when media and politics mix together it becomes political marketing that indices the discourse of the politicians. When comparing the ways Le Pen uses to communicate with the people and her attempts to win votes with characteristics of Vox populism and algorithmic populism, you will find a lot of similarities. Therefore, Marine Le Pen can be called a populist. lthough she claims to be a democrat, it seems like she wants a different kind of democracy. Her views align with the anti-Enlightenment ideology, which means she is not the democrat she claims to be.

References

Chrisafis, A. (2015, April 08). France's Front National plunged into family feud over Holocaust remarks. Retrieved December 4, 2017.

Le Pen, M. Facebook.​

Le Pen, M. Twitter.

Lempert, M., & Silverstein, M. (2012). Creatures of Politics: Media, Message, and the American Presidency. Indiana University Press.

Maly, I. (2017). Digital Media & Politics, Class 2.

Maly, I. (2017). Digital Media & Politics, Class 3.

Sergent, C. (2017, April 24). French election: Why Front National supporters are secretly disappointed with their leader Marine Le Pen. Retrieved December 04, 2017.

Sternhell, Z. (2009). The Anti-Enlightenment Tradition. Yale University Press.

Times, N. (2017, May 05). In Their Own Words: Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron. Retrieved December 06, 2017.