For the voters of the National Rally (RN), it is a week in the form of an emotional roller coaster that is coming to an end. Euphoria, first, when Jordan Bardella’s party obtained more than 33% of the votes in the first round, on June 29. Then the slow disillusionment, when the polling institutes and political observers gradually excluded the possibility of an absolute majority in the Assembly. Dismay, finally, when the RN only rose to third place in the second round, this Sunday, July 7, beaten by the New Popular Front (NFP) and the presidential majority (Ensemble).
According to sociologist Félicien Faury, author of the book Ordinary Voters: An Investigation into the Normalization of the Far Right (Le Seuil, 2024), this umpteenth frustration could largely consolidate the anti-system position of RN activists, and aggravate the political divide between certain territories. Interview.
L’Express: After this unexpected result in the legislative elections, how is the frustration of the National Rally voters likely to evolve?
Félicien Faury: What we are already seeing in the speeches of the RN spokespeople is an anti-system rhetoric that is being reactivated. The idea that the party would once again be alone against all, the victim of a large elitist coalition that would have acted as a barrier, is widely taken up by the RN. This is a very old rhetoric of the party, which seeks to be integrated into the political game while positioning itself as a subversive party. We remember that the FN denounced at the time “UMPS”, very regularly using this formula which allowed it to amalgamate the right and the left, as being the components of a single camp opposed to its political party. I was thus able to find this idea among the voters I met during my survey, who integrate the fact that the political world, and in particular “those of the government”, would form a homogeneous bloc which arouses above all hostility and distrust.
Could this idea of ”us versus them” be fueling certain conspiracy theories about the elections?
We really have to realise that in certain territories and certain social groups, RN voters are surrounded by peers who share their political opinions and their electoral choices.
“The prospect of an RN victory may have disinhibited some voters, who have moved from racist opinions to liberated racist speech.”
Many people around them only know people who voted for the RN during the last elections, and who therefore do not understand how it is possible that Emmanuel Macron was re-elected in the 2022 presidential election, or that the NFP came out on top on July 7. This bubble effect and political and social consonance does not only exist on the Internet and on social networks, but indeed in the ordinary lives of individuals – and not only at the RN!
So there is this form of incomprehension, which can fuel conspiracy theories. For example, RN voters have already spoken to me, on the ground, about their suspicions concerning the rigging of elections or polls.
During the campaign, many associations and citizens warned about the racist and xenophobic violence that has become commonplace in public spaces. Do you think that the frustration of RN voters following the election could continue to fuel this phenomenon?
It’s hard to say. In this period between the two rounds, the prospect of an RN victory was indeed able to disinhibit certain voters, who went from racist opinions to liberated racist speech, via the insults or physical acts that we have seen.
Given that this prospect of victory is receding, one might think that these acts will also recede. But in the areas where I have worked, for example in the south-east of France where the reasons that structure the RN vote are purchasing power, but also the rejection of immigrants and minorities, this feeling will remain very active. It can be fuelled by a certain frustration with the vote, the feeling that around you, “everyone thinks that”, but that in Paris, in the political and intellectual fields, we would not dare to take it into account.
Conversely, could the succession of racist, anti-Semitic or xenophobic statements by certain RN candidates – or their incompetence – call into question the political ideology of voters?
I don’t think that the negative media coverage of certain candidates will have any impact on RN voters themselves – on the contrary, in some cases, it can motivate them more. The accusation of incompetence can also be a double-edged sword: given that these are voters who may also have had complicated educational backgrounds, an identification process is set in place, and when candidates are lectured, voters may feel that they are being lectured too.
This media coverage, however, has more consequences for right-wing or centre-right voters, who were thus able to choose not to abstain but to vote for left-wing candidates, and for the mobilisation of left-wing voters, who were able to vote for right-wing or centre-right candidates.
Do these elections risk worsening the political divide between certain territories?
We are witnessing forms of political polarization, which are reflected in particular geographically, with this knock-on effect.
“Obtaining more than 140 seats in the National Assembly was undreamed of for the RN just five years ago.”
When you live in a territory where, around you, the hegemonic electoral norm becomes the hard right or the extreme right, you will be encouraged, from close to close, to assume your ideology and vote even more for this political formation. This fuels forms of homogenization, which are territorially inscribed.
Do you think that the “glass ceiling” of the RN vote could discourage certain voters?
I have been working on the RN since 2015, and I have always heard about this glass ceiling. I do not believe in it. In any case, it is a glass ceiling that continues to crack, and the RN’s defeats have never discouraged its voters in the long term. If we take these legislative elections, they certainly represent a defeat compared to what was hoped for, but a large victory compared to what was conceivable for the RN just a few years ago.
Obtaining more than 140 seats in the National Assembly, with the financial windfall that this represents and the parliamentary collaborators that go with it, was unhoped for by the RN five years ago. It is therefore once again a very important step forward for this party, which will allow it to considerably improve its professionalization, a major challenge for 2027. The “dam” therefore continues to function, but on the other side, the level is always rising higher.
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