Abstract
From the Front National to the Rassemblement National, Marine Le Pen has done what was once inconceivable in bringing France’s far-right into mainstream politics. The daughter of Le Diable (the devil), Marine Le Pen has ushered in a ‘new’ European rightwing populism—far from the Männerparteien of the past—with her femonationalism and media politics. This paper aims to increase our understanding of Marine Le Pen’s iteration of French nationalism and illusions of femininity. Through a series of illustrative case studies and supporting research, I reveal how Le Pen manipulates her sexuality and womanhood in an attempt to soften the crude image of the Front National left by Jean-Marie Le Pen, and to attract female voters conflicted by Emmanuel Macron’s measures on égalité. The concluding section discusses these findings in relation to Le Pen’s prospective 2027 presidential candidacy and Giorgia Meloni’s ‘winning face’ of the far-right amidst an era of realignment.
DOI
10.5642/urceu.TPYE2136
Rights Information
2024 Taryn Blecher
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Blecher, Taryn M.
(2024)
"Cloaking the Front National: Marine Le Pen, Femininity, and the Evolution of a ‘New’ European Far-Right,"
Claremont-UC Undergraduate Research Conference on the European Union:
Vol. 2024, Article 4.
DOI: 10.5642/urceu.TPYE2136
Available at:
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/urceu/vol2024/iss1/4
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