The south of France is a stronghold of Marine Le Pen, but has it reached a ceiling?

Eight months before the next French presidential election, it is possible that the 2022 competition will once again come down to a choice between Emmanuel Macron and the far-right leader Marine Le Pen.

To access the second round, as it did in 2017, Le Pen will rely on the strongholds of his party in the north and south of the country. In particular, the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region, known as PACA, where the National Rally (formerly Front National) has patiently established itself as a force over the years.

PACA is made up of six departments: Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, Alpes-Maritimes, Bouches-du-Rhône, Hautes-Alpes, Var and Vaucluse. It includes large cities such as Marseille, Nice and Toulon, as well as those with strong symbolic or cultural significance such as Avignon and Cannes.

It was in 1995 that the Front National won for the first time three important towns in the region in municipal elections: Toulon, Orange and Marignane, adding Vitrolles in 1997. The towns fell to the far right due to a combination. historical mismanagement and growing dissent, although some have since reverted to more traditional festivals.

In the 2017 presidential election, Le Pen won the first round with 28% of the vote in PACA, while Macron came in third. Le Pen lost the second round against Macron, winning 45% of the vote against 55% for Macron.

These electoral moments allowed the National Assembly to establish itself firmly in the region, to support itself, to consolidate its networks, to hire more employees, to attract volunteers, to get involved in local organizations and to forge a more respectable image.

The anti-immigrant vote

How did the extreme right become so well established in the south? More than any other question, the vote is federated around the question of immigration which includes almost all the voters of the National Assembly, whatever their disagreements on other subjects such as the economy. My research has shown how crucial this point has been in building support for the far right in this region since 2000.

The term “immigration” must be analyzed in its complexity for the electorate in PACA. It is strongly linked to the cultural, cultural, economic or historical identity markers of the region. And unlike other regions of France, in PACA there is a strong correlation between areas with a higher rate of immigration and those where there is a significant far-right vote.

The other key point is the rejection of Islam in its most visible forms among far-right voters, especially women who wear the veil and the presence of halal shops.

Rally in support of Marine Le Pen (RN) on July 19, 2019 in Le Thor, near Avignon, in view of the European elections in May 2019.
Clement Mahoudeau / AFP

Some, especially older voters, feel that the Provencal identity, which is not limited to the department of Provence but crosses the region, is being disrupted by waves of migration.

The returnees of French origin who left Algeria after its independence, although not being a homogeneous electoral bloc, are an important component of the far-right vote in PACA, due to their historic rejection of Charles de Gaulle which they consider as having “renounced” Algeria. Today this community is aging and the historical trauma is gradually fading, but the connections have left their mark and their votes often go to the far right.

Rally National voters are receptive to the link often established between immigration and delinquency by party leaders. “Crime is the consequence of immigration,” said Marine Le Pen in 2018, an argument now widely used about immigration and terrorism

This electorate also remains partly convinced by the words of Marine’s father and founder of the Jean Marie Le Pen party, who was a regional advisor in PACA and spoke of immigrants taking jobs from the “French”. But the argument is less present today in view of two elements: on the one hand, Marine Le Pen now links employment to the larger issue of globalization, which according to her is destroying jobs; on the other, the expressions “Islamists” and “migrants” have replaced the terms “Arabs or immigrants” used in the past.

Admittedly, within the party, the white supremacist idea of ​​the “great replacement” remains attractive, but there is no longer any question of singling out the “Arabs”, because the second generation immigrants formerly categorized as such are now perceived as potentials. far-right voters.

Respectability policy

While in some parts of the country, Le Pen and his party are considered anathema even to those on the right, in PACA the relationship between the traditional right, Les Républicains, and the National Rally is more porous.

It is in this context that Thierry Mariani, who has made his entire political career to the right of French politics, has become a key candidate for the National Rally. After suggesting that the Republicans consider agreements with Le Pen’s party in 2018, this native of Orange ended up joining the National Rally list for the 2019 European elections. He was head of the PACA electoral list in the elections. regional 2021.

Jean-Paul Garraud (right) and Thierry Mariani (left), former members of the Les Républicains party, announce that they will join the RN lists in the European elections in May 2019.
Bertrand Guay / AFP

Mariani is well known and well rooted in the region, especially in Vaucluse: he was for a long time general councilor of the department and was mayor of Valréas. In the 1990s, he was regional advisor to PACA then was transport minister under the presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy.

As head of the electoral list in the regional elections, Mariani offered the National Rally a veneer of respectability, part of a process of rehabilitation of the party initiated by Marine Le Pen since she became leader in 2011.

Mariani did not win the PACA as expected in the 2021 regional elections, which were marked by record abstention rates, but through his mere presence he contributed to a growing sense that the far right is no longer taboo or repulsive in France.

However, its failure will give the National Rally a pause for reflection before the presidential election of 2022. Has the party reached a ceiling of electoral success? Did other parties manage to find a way to prevent him from winning in the second round of the elections?

Marine Le Pen remains a serious candidate for the next presidential elections. But it seems that the competition is getting tougher for the National Rally. There is the candidacy of Eric Zemmour, which threatens to overwhelm the far-right party. Then there is Florian Philippot, the former campaign manager of Le Pen, who is now riding the wave of the anti-health care movement, as well as his traditional rival, Nicolas Dupont Aignan. The ranks of the far-right challengers are filling and threatening to divide Le Pen’s vote in France.

As for PACA, if the region remains a bastion of the National Rally, it is not the essential base that many thought before the regional elections.

It seems that the points of weakness are multiplying for Le Pen.

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