The European Parliament and its funds: the FN’s political stronghold
Since 2015, the National Front has been the subject of a investigation into allegations of ghost employment regarding parliamentary assistants to FN MEPs. The investigation conducted by theEuropean Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) at the European Union level has recently led to a claim for damages of 339,946 euros by the European Parliament.
Emmanuelle Reungoat, University of Montpellier
These practices, which are undoubtedly rare in this chamber, are characteristic of parties that, having few elected representatives and/or limited resources, rely in part on funds allocated by the European Parliament to sustain their political activities in their home countries.
But within the FN, these uses of the term “Europe” are part of a long-standing practice that began with the 1984 election. While the European parliamentary arena may also have occasionally helped bolster the rise of the Greens, for example, in this specific case, its development indirectly contributed to the destabilization of national political balances in favor of the far right.
“Europe”: a boon in many ways
For the National Front, the multiple functions of European elections and the parliamentary institution serve to simultaneously strengthen the party’s practical capacity for action, its visibility, and its legitimacy; support its efforts to expand its electoral base; and consolidate the leader’s position within the party apparatus.
Thus, since its debut on the European stage in 1984, the National Front has turned MEP seats—and, at times, the institution-funded assistant positions that accompany them—into a veritable “rear base” for the national political struggle waged by its leaders.
Over the decades, in the French national context dominated by a first-past-the-post electoral system, the European election—based on proportional representation—has become a remarkable electoral windfall for small and medium-sized parties, particularly before its 2003 reform.
A driver of professionalization for the FN
While so-called mid-sized parties, such as the PCF and the Greens, can see their leaders win national office in legislative elections through agreements with the “major” parties, the FN’s political isolation makes this European election a more decisive opportunity for it than for others. FN leaders understood this immediately, and the overrepresentation of MEPs in the leadership team has, since 1984, been one of the distinguishing features of Marine Le Pen’s movement compared to other parties.
The stakes are high: the goal is to enable leaders to become full-time politicians, to live for and through politics. In a closed national electoral system, the European election thus serves as a key vehicle for the political professionalization of Front National cadres. It also aims to bolster or relieve the party during times of financial difficulty.
The practice of aligning the FN’s lead candidates in European elections with the key 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 leaders threatening the supremacy of the president, Jean-Marie Le Pen. Thus , the order of the lists generally includes the FN president, his 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 European Parliament itself are also significant sources of growth for the Front National.
Some rather unconventional parliamentary aides
While this practice is not necessarily limited to the National Front or the European institution, the employment of assistants attached to MEPs or European political groups also allows parties to hire “staff members” whose work can, in part, contribute to supporting the organization’s political activities.
While longitudinal data remain incomplete, the atypical characteristics of the profession of assistants attached to the FN can be observed in the last two legislative terms (2004–2009 and 2009–2014). Many of them have run in 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, or even vice-presidents).
The employment of certain leaders in parliamentary assistant positions has been a common practice within the FN since the 1990s. During the 2009–2014 legislative term, three FN vice-presidents were found among the local assistants within the European Parliament (subject to French law) during a period when the party was in a precarious financial situation and notoriously in debt: Jean-François Jalkh, Floriant Philippot, and Louis Aliot (the latter since 2004), Marine Le Pen’s partner and campaign coordinator.
Over the past thirty years, the development of European elections and the European Parliament has thus enabled the FN’s top leaders to devote themselves to politics, hold office, gain prominence, and—particularly for the party’s new president—establish her international stature.
Europe as a source of legitimacy and control
The European Parliament has provided the party leader with additional symbolic resources through the development of renewed partnerships with certain parties at the European level since 2015. These partnerships have enabled Marine Le Pen to assume leadership roles within a European political group, “Europe of Nations and Freedom,” which she co-chairs.
In addition to projecting an image that counterbalances the isolation affecting the party at the national level, the restructuring of the FN’s European networks in recent years has reinforced, at this level, the party’s strategy of gaining respectability, for example by ostensibly distancing itself from the most radical parties such as Hungary’s Jobbik.
The European arena also serves as a tool for the president to maintain control over the party apparatus. This realignment of European alliances effectively gives Marine Le Pen the opportunity to sideline her former rival by depriving Bruno Gollnisch of the political resources afforded by his strong integration into European networks. Finally, the European election has long been a tool for the movement’s president to control the organization, as he retains control over candidate nominations.
Political professionals just like anyone else
Ultimately, beyond the FN, we see here some of the effects of the opening of a European political arena on national political competition. While this is not always enough to ensure the long-term survival of a new entrant (one might cite the relative failures of the RPF or the MPF), it indirectly contributes to the pluralism of national political systems and serves as a source of conflict in the face of the depoliticization resulting from the convergence of so-called governing parties.
As for the Front National leaders, they turn out to be, just like the other parties of the “establishment” (with the exception of the far left), professional politicians. Contrary to the rhetoric about the “new FN,” an analysis of the new leadership’s practices illustrates, [through its approach to Europe as in other fields, the strong continuity it shares with the party of previous decades, that of Jean-Marie Le Pen.
Emmanuelle Reungoat, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Montpellier
The original version This article was published on The Conversation.