The Front National’s influence on immigration during President François Hollande’s term

Abstract

Fifteen years after the victory in the 1997 legislative elections, the French centre-left Parti Socialiste (PS) celebrated its return to power with the 2012 presidential elections. As widely expected, the PS candidate François Hollande was elected President of the French Fifth Republic after beating the incumbent centre-right President Nicolas Sarkozy, albeit with a mere 51,64 per cent of the vote in the second round (Gaffney, 2015). At the same time, the 2012 presidential elections represented the first national ballot contested by the French radical right populist party (RRPP) – Front National under Marine Le Pen’s leadership, who managed to achieve a historical new electoral record for this party. Driven by Marine’s ‘de-demonization’ project, the FN’s electoral inroads progressed throughout the cycle of second-order ballots taking place during the presidential term, whereas the PS’s electoral support observed a continuous and severe nationwide decline. The pressure posed by the FN over the French Socialist presidency intensified, especially after the polls started to forecast Marine’s participation in the second round of the 2017 presidential ballot (Feltesse, 2017). Given this context, this research explores what was the FN’s influence on the French policies of immigration control and immigrant integration during President Hollande’s term.