Content area
Full Text
To the surprise of the vast majority of the French, the extreme right-wing politician Jean-Marie Le Pen finished second on the first round of the April 2002 presidential elections, obtaining the right to face President Jacques Chirac in May on the second and final round. Le Pen's victory over Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, the Socialist party candidate and favorite to be one of the final two contenders, left the French asking why it happened and blaming one another for such a horrendous result. Was Le Pen's victory a second 'divine surprise,' as Marshal Pétain's elevation to head of state was called in 1940? Or was it far more banal than this: a 'divine fluke' perhaps? Was it part of a European drift to the right, as previous elections in Austria, Denmark, and Italy might suggest? Or was it tied specifically to indigenous factors that had little to do with what was happening elsewhere? Did Le Pen provide his National Front party with the momentum needed to win in the future? Or was this Le Pen's swan song, his last try for the presidency -- and the last time we will hear of the extreme right National Front as a significant political force?
In a sense, the April election was a 'divine fluke.' Le Pen should have never won second place. His margin of victory was less than one per cent over Lionel Jospin.1 While Jacques Chirac faced only two or three serious rightist candidates among the record 16 who ran for election, Jospin confronted at least four on the left, including a potentially dangerous newcomer, the former Minister of the Interior in the Jospin government, Jean-Pierre Chevènement. At most, Chirac's rivals on the right took 15% of the vote, while Jospin's leftist opponents garnered over 20%.2 As Parodi (2002) has argued, cohabitation was an enormous success, providing both Jospin and Chirac with high popularity levels that made them immune to challenges within their parties. However, this led to a dull election campaign, which was enlivened by a host of minor party candidates whose utopian programs appealed to many voters who cast their ballots for an ideal on April 21, believing that Chirac and Jospin would win no matter what. Both left and...