ABSTRACT
Yet it would be naive to equate the Front National’s electoral failure with the failure of its ideological struggle. As the last part of this book will demonstrate, the programme of the radical right party slowly infiltrated government politics, and the successful use of populism ‘forced’ moderate parties to shift their agenda rightward to follow the ‘desires’ of the ‘people’. The Front National’s ideas have become widely acceptable – a poll in 2005 showed that 56 per cent of participants believed ‘the number of immigrants was too high’ – while tolerance for immigrants was seemingly on the decrease and 33 per cent of those surveyed admitted to being ‘rather racist’ (Venner 2006: 172).2 More striking than any of the Front National’s results was the fact that it seemed now tolerable, even acceptable, to vocalise one’s xenophobia and racism. In hindsight, Marine Le Pen might well have been right when, asked whether the poor results of the 2007 presidential elections marked the end of Jean-Marie Le Pen and the Front National, she concluded that ‘in any case, this [was] the victory of his ideas’ (Le Pen 22 April 2007).
