‘Jean-Marie Le Pen: a cautionary tale from the French right to the British left’

This month saw the death of Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of the French far-right National Front party.

Obituaries majored unsurprisingly on the xenophobia and antisemitism that defined his political career. Yet in the context of a faltering Labour Government and an emboldened Reform UK, a different aspect of Le Pen’s legacy also deserves our attention: the left-leaning economic platform that helped build the National Front’s working-class base and has since brought its successor, the National Rally, within inches of power.

The rise of the French far-right has long seemed alien to the UK. While the National Front has been a major political player since it won 35 seats in 1986, British equivalents like the British National Party (BNP) have never gained traction.

But in the 2024 general election, Reform UK won 14% of the popular vote, and of the quarter of Labour voters that regret their choice, 28% would now vote for Nigel Farage’s party. Now, Reform is a far cry from the violently racist National Front, and is more comparable to the somewhat sanitised National Rally.

However, there is a clear parallel to be made between Le Pen’s leftist economics and the growing threat that Reform poses to Labour’s socially conservative Red Wall seats.

When the far-right leans left

On a factory visit in 2014, Thierry Lepaon, general secretary of France’s foremost trade union, discovered an interesting pamphlet. He later used its words in a speech to union members where they were met with unanimous approval. The slight problem, he then admitted to a shocked audience, was that the text had been lifted verbatim from National Front literature.

Lepaon was observing a phenomenon that has been central to the success of both the National Front and the National Rally: their ability to appeal to both ends of the political spectrum.

When Le Pen founded the National Front in 1972, it was an economically neoliberal national sovereignist party that relied primarily on small entrepreneurs and shopkeepers for support. Although distinguished by certain hard-line elements and vocal nationalism, it remained ideologically similar to much of the mainstream right on economic matters in particular.

This changed in the 1980s and 90s when the party responded to its lack of success by beginning to target the blue-collar electorate. Most memorably, this shift involved cranking up its xenophobic rhetoric to aggressively promote issues like immigration.

READ MORE: What is behind Labour’s polling woes and what can the party do to turn the tide?

But Le Pen’s anti-establishment populism also included an important economic shift: switching neoliberal messaging for a more heavy-handed, recognisably left-wing policy approach.

Le Pen’s chauvinistic policy of national preference therefore sat within a broader social programme calling for the creation of parental allowances, wage rises, and retirement at 60.

This shift had a profound impact. In the 1995 presidential election, Le Pen won 15% of the vote and led among blue-collar workers, with analysts identifying a current of desertion from the post-materialist left towards a National Front that seemed ready to fight their corner.

Importantly, this shift was lasting. In the 2007 presidential election – when Le Pen lost much support to the conservative Nicolas Sarkozy – it was the working classes that stayed most faithful to his cause.

This trajectory continued under Le Pen’s daughter, Marine Le Pen, who became party leader in 2010. Ahead of the 2017 elections, Le Pen specifically targeted left-wing voters, mirroring trade union messaging, recruiting from trade union membership and copying the left’s policy priorities, for instance promising to improve rural medical coverage in France’s ‘medical deserts.’

Contextualised by the precipitous decline of socialist president François Hollande, such messaging proved effective. Not only did Le Pen reach the 2017 presidential run-off, she managed to win over 7% of the socialists who had voted for Hollande in 2012.

Handling the populist right

The French far-right’s perceived left turn is marred by hypocrisy. For example, its promises to resolve France’s medical deserts are directly contradicted by aims to drastically reduce the number of foreign-trained medical staff on whom the solution would rely.

However, no matter their contradictions, these promises have helped win 57% of the working-class vote – a figure that has been consistent since 2017 – and which is beginning to crystallise.

Back in the UK, there are signs that the rightist Reform UK might now employ a similar tactic in its economic policy.

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Nigel Farage’s party sits firmly on the cultural right. Almost 90% of his supporters believe that young people don’t have enough respect for British values. However, its economic profile is much muddier. Roughly three-quarters of these voters feel that ordinary working people don’t get their fair share of the nation’s wealth, and a third support actively redistributing it.

Reform’s leadership has responded by creeping economically leftwards. Their 2024 manifesto promised a 50% nationalisation of utilities, and the party recently called for greater protectionism over steel.

Commentators on the left continue to play down Reform’s threat to Labour, claiming that any alarm is “overblown” and that Farage’s new supporters still come predominantly from the Conservatives. However, the French example shows that the left simply cannot afford such insouciance.

Starmer clearly wants to get closer to France. His recent dinner at Chequers with President Emmanuel Macron proves as much.

But when it comes to handling threats from the populist right, theirs is an example he would do well to avoid.

Read more on Rachel Reeves’ growth plans:

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• Reeves heads-off southern bias claims with focus on northern investment
• ‘Tearing up regulations or bending the knee to billionaires won’t deliver growth’
• Reeves just gave absent Miliband an airport he wants, not just one he doesn’t
• Heathrow debate: ‘A third runway would shred Britain’s green credibility’
• Heathrow debate: ‘Third runway Labour’s trump card for trade and growth’

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