The European Rescue of the Rassemblement National: European Parliament Elections as First Order Elections

Today, Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement national (RN) is a major political force with 23 MEPS, 8 deputies, and 358 regional councilors. How did a small fringe extreme right party, the Front National (FN), led by a former soldier and monarchist Jean Marie Le Pen succeed in this? The argument of this paper is that the growth of the FN/RN and the development of its political strategies as well as the political issues it has promoted (security, islamophobia…) are structurally linked to the European level and EP elections. The political platform and financial resources the EP offered saved the FN/RN from disappearing from the political scene and enabled it to become in a span of 40 years a key player not only in French but also in European politics. From the beginning, European elections were for the FN first order elections.