The isolated Rassemblement National: the failure of municipal Lepenism

For the Rassemblement National, this municipal election was set to be one of deep roots.

Emmanuel Négrier, University of Montpellier

It promised to be very different from 1995, when symbolic victories in towns such as Toulon, Marignane and Orange proved to be exceptional and fragile: unsustainable in electoral terms for Toulon and Vitrolles, and complicated for the apparatus elsewhere, with well-established elected representatives, such as Jacques Bompart in Orange and Daniel Simonpieri in Marignane, dissenting.

This election also promised to be different from 2014, which was marked by significant gains, particularly in the far right's two main areas of influence: a vast northeast, from Hénin-Beaumont to Villers-Cotterêts via Hayange; and the Mediterranean coast, with Béziers, Fréjus and Beaucaire in particular.

However, nothing has gone according to plan, and it has to be said that the RN finds itself in a very complicated situation on the eve of the second round.

A double challenge

This time, the stakes were twofold. The first was to hold on to the mayoralties won in the last municipal elections, in circumstances that were sometimes peculiar, notably the high fragmentation of the opposition, without being able to count on significant reserves of votes.

The second was to translate the party's successes in the 2015 regional elections, the 2017 presidential elections and the 2019 European elections, in which the party topped the polls, to this very particular scale.

To achieve this, the Rassemblement National opted for a three-pronged strategy: local roots, overflow and enlistment of the right, and euphemistic discourse. These three pillars of the far-right's notabilization constituted Bruno Mégret's "posthumous" victory over Jean-Marie Le Pen, who had always resisted the slightest political autonomy for his local elected representatives.

This would enable the party to increase its number of representatives at local level and, while it wasn't always a question of winning, at least this pool of candidates meant that certain favorable outcomes could be envisaged in the subsequent senatorial elections.

This strategy was particularly apparent in Perpignan, where Louis Aliot had strengthened an already substantial foothold by winning the seat of deputy for the^2nd constituency of the Pyrénées-Orientales in 2017. Above all, the tone of his campaign revealed a debonair leader, whose moderate discourse almost contrasted with the radically right-wing accents of the outgoing LR mayor.

It has found an almost embarrassing supporter in Robert Ménard, who from Béziers is thinking more and more clearly about the world after Marine Le Pen. Having tried and failed to bring together radical right-wing ideologies with his "Ose ta droite" event , Ménard has shifted his tactics towards electoral overflow, advocating the synthesis of the right in Sète (where he endorsed the Les Républicains departmental secretary) and Frontignan (where he supported Gérard Prato, the frontist candidate, in the name of the same axis), while Thierry Mariani, François Fillon's former minister, did the same in Lunel.

Resounding failure and first-round setback

The result of this notabilization strategy is a resounding failure, full of paradoxes. To attribute it to the health crisis would be an exaggeration. The failure precedes March 15, 2020: the RN has not even managed to present as many lists in towns of over 10,000 inhabitants as it did in 2014. Far from it: just 262 lists, compared with 369 in 2014!

The Fondation Jean Jaurès kept a precise account of the results of these lists, which were fewer in number but - it was promised - of greater quality and electoral appeal, in the first round.

The result is indisputable. The RN is in decline in all regions, even those where it enjoyed a considerable electoral base, as measured by the scores obtained in 2017 (presidential) and 2019 (European) when it exceeded 50% of the vote in a large number of communes (Occitanie, PACA, Hauts-de-France, Grand Est).

The first paradox, then, is that the RN failed to extend its influence even though it benefited from extremely favorable winds. In the cities of the south, where its chances appeared all the stronger with its pool of regular candidates in the same areas for several years, its decline is impressive.

He lost a third of his influence in Nîmes, and more than half in Saint-Gilles, his first stronghold in the late 1980s, a town he almost won back with Gilbert Collard in 2014. In addition to the towns where he failed to represent lists, his scores were down sharply in Frontignan (28%, 2 points and 800 votes less than in 2014). In Montpellier and Toulouse, the two metropolises, he even fell below the 5% mark, synonymous with non-reimbursement of election expenses.

In Sète, a hotbed of Ménard-style right-wing fusion, the notable Sébastien Pacull, an outgoing deputy invested by the RN, won... 14.4% of the vote, exactly the same percentage as in 2014, but with 900 fewer votes, due to abstentions. The idea was to blow up the dykes, but they seem to have firmed up in these towns of expected conquest.

Outgoing winners

The second paradox is that, while the RN is losing ground in areas where it had the most reasonable hopes - with the exception of a few cases such as Moissac in the Tarn region, where it doubled its score and was very well placed to win in the second round - it scored resounding victories in areas where it was outgoing.

Beaucaire, Béziers and Fréjus, among many others, were won in specific contexts of pathological opposition division, and in triangular contests in the second round without reaching 50% of the vote. Here, re-elections have been masterly, as in Hénin-Beaumont, Hayange, Villers-Cotterêts or Le Pontet.

But they only confirm the exceptional nature of the RN's municipal leadership, both nationally and in the areas where it is based. It is also remarkable that these successes do not, more often than not, lead to an extension to the inter-municipal level, where more and more resources are available to influence public action.

Julien Sanchez triumphed in Beaucaire, but was unable to govern the Communauté de communes Terres d'Argence. Steve Briois faces the same problem in Hénin-Beaumont.

Political singularity

In the end, the RN, which wanted to normalize itself through these elections, is only reinforcing its political singularity and, by the same token, its isolation. Why should this be?

To put this electoral episode into perspective, we'll have to wait for the results of the second round, where he is still in a position to hold on in 136 communes (compared with 317 in 2014). But the following three points can already be made.

• If the RN is failing to take root at municipal level, it's because it isn't seen by voters or potential candidates as a party like any other. Even when it talks in terms of moderation, it always gives off the smell of sulphur. The best proof of this is provided in survey situations: RN voters, like FN voters yesterday, are the only ones who feel the need to justify themselves when asked who they're voting for. To get past this, voters can't be satisfied with the offer of representation. They need the experience of power. And the leaders of the 2014 vintage, unlike most of their predecessors, have skilfully played on communication, symbolic operations and a hyper-presence on the ground.
• The health crisis has obviously played a role among voters who, in the past, had opted for the European lists, or the RN's legislative and presidential candidacies. There has been much speculation about the stupefaction that gripped voters on March 15, reinforcing the preference for incumbents and disqualifying the most "disruptive" opposition. There is undoubtedly some truth in the idea that episodes of brutal severity have a negative impact on parties that feed on sad passions: hostility to others, feelings of downgrading, loss of collective bearings, and so on. The prevailing feeling on March 15 was one of "joyful" passions, of mutual aid, solidarity and the need for common goods. But the evil, for the RN, goes far beyond that. If there is a structural distortion between European success and municipal disappointment, it's because even for its supporters, the RN remains undesirable "back home". This is the paradox of the illegitimacy of the RN. To ward off this Indian sign, it would be necessary to add to the decompositions of the local right (and left) the rise of a providential man who knows how to make this breeding ground bear fruit. By definition, this is exceptional.
• It would be wrong, therefore, to regard this failure as a more general setback for the RN. If the municipal singularity persists for the far right, it's because it is partially disconnected from the causes and dynamics that are driving its success at other levels, as researchers Jean-Yves Camus and Nicolas Lebourg have recently shown for Europe.

The agitation of sad passions, the culture of simplistic solutions and the lack of cultural and educational investment have, in post-Covid-19 Europe and France, enough to rearm the narrative of the radical right.

Emmanuel Négrier, CNRS Research Director in Political Science at CEPEL, University of Montpellier, University of Montpellier

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read theoriginal article.