The European Parliament and its funds, the FN's political base
Since 2015, the National Front has been the subject of a investigation into suspected fictitious jobs on parliamentary assistants to FN MEPs. The investigation conducted by theEuropean Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) at the European Union level recently gave rise to a claim for damages of €339,946 by the European Parliament.
Emmanuelle Reungoat, University of Montpellier
These practices, which are undoubtedly in the minority in this House, are characteristic of parties which, having few elected representatives and/or limited resources, rely partly on funds allocated by the European Parliament to sustain their political activities in their country of origin.
But within the FN, these uses of "Europe" are part of a long-term practice that began with the 1984 election. While the European parliamentary arena may also have contributed to supporting the rise of the Greens, for example, in this specific case, its development indirectly contributed to destabilizing the national political balance in favor of the far right.
“Europe,” a boon in many ways
For the FN, the multiple uses of European elections and the parliamentary institution serve to strengthen the party's material capacity for action, visibility, and legitimacy, support its attempts to broaden its electoral base, and consolidate the leader's position within the party apparatus.
Thus, since its debut on the European scene in 1984, the National Front has used MEP seats and, in some cases, institution-funded assistant positions as a veritable "rear base" for the national political struggle led by its leaders.
Over the decades, in the French national context dominated by a majority voting system, the European elections—based on proportional representation—have provided a remarkable electoral windfall for small and medium-sized parties, particularly before its 2003 reform.
A vehicle for professionalization for the FN
When, as in the case of the PCF and the Greens, so-called medium-sized parties can see their leaders gain national office in legislative elections through agreements with the "major" parties, the political isolation of the FN contributes to making this European election a more decisive opportunity than for others. The FN's leaders understood this immediately, and since 1984, the over-representation of MEPs in the leadership team has been one of the distinctive features of Marine Le Pen's movement compared to other parties.
The stakes are high: it is a question of enabling leaders to become full-time politicians, to live for and from politics. In a closed national competition, the European elections are therefore an important vehicle for the political professionalization of Front National leaders. It is also a question of developing or relieving the party in times of financial difficulty.
The practice of having the FN's top candidates in the European elections coincide with the main members of the political bureau has been in place since the 1980s (see below). It became established in the 1990s as an explicit strategy, occasionally disrupted by gender parity requirements or the desire to sideline executives who threatened the supremacy of the party's president, Jean-Marie Le Pen. Thus , the order of the lists generally includes the FN president, the secretary-general, the general delegate, and the party's leading figures.
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But that's not all. Beyond their mandates, the material resources and funding made available to MEPs by the parliamentary institution itself are also important sources of development for the Front National organization.
Some pretty unusual parliamentary assistants
Although this practice is not necessarily limited to the FN or the European institution, the use of assistants attached to MEPs or European political groups also allows parties to employ "permanent staff" whose work can contribute, in part, to supporting the political activity of the organization.
Although longitudinal data remains incomplete, the last legislative terms (2004-2009 and 2009-2014) reveal some atypical characteristics for the profession of FN assistants. Many of them have stood for local or legislative elections, are often members of the party's Central Committee, and several hold various positions within the party apparatus (departmental secretaries, national delegates, advisors, and even vice-presidents).
The employment of certain leaders in parliamentary assistant positions has been common practice in the FN since the 1990s. During the 2009-2014 legislative term, three vice-presidents of the FN were among the local assistants in the European Parliament (subject to French law) at a time when the party was in a delicate financial situation and notoriously in debt: Jean-François Jalkh, Floriant Philippot, and Louis Aliot (since 2004, in the latter case), Marine Le Pen's partner and campaign coordinator.
Over the last 30 years, the development of elections and the European Parliament has therefore enabled the main leaders of the FN to devote themselves to politics, to hold office, to gain notoriety and, in particular, for the new party president, to establish her international stature.
Europe as a source of legitimacy and control
The European Parliament has provided additional symbolic resources to the party president through the development of renewed partnerships with certain parties at the European level since 2015. These partnerships have enabled Marine Le Pen to take on leadership roles within a European political group, "Europe of Nations and Freedom," which she co-chairs.
In addition to counterbalancing the party's isolation at the national level, the restructuring of the FN's European networks in recent years has reinforced the party's strategy of gaining respectability at this level, for example by ostensibly distancing itself from more radical parties such as Hungary's Jobbik.
The European arena is also a tool for the president to dominate the party apparatus. This restructuring of European alliances gives Marine Le Pen the opportunity to sideline her former adversary by depriving Bruno Gollnisch of the political resources provided by his strong integration into European networks. Finally, the European elections have long been a tool for the movement's president to control the organization, as he retains control over nominations.
Political professionals like any others
Ultimately, beyond the FN, we can see here some of the effects of the opening up of the European political arena on national competition. While this is not always enough to ensure the longevity of a new entrant (one might cite the relative failures of the RPF and the MPF), it indirectly contributes to the pluralism of national systems and constitutes a source of conflict in the face of the depoliticization produced by the rapprochement of the so-called governing parties.
As for the Front National leaders, they turn out to be, just like the other parties in the "system" (apart from the far left), professional politicians. Contrary to the rhetoric about the "new FN," an analysis of the practices of the new leadership illustrates, [through its use of Europe as in other areas, the great continuity with which it follows on from the party of previous decades, that of Jean-Marie Le Pen.
Emmanuelle Reungoat, Lecturer in Political Science, University of Montpellier
The original version of this article was published on The Conversation.