Safia Dahani Chair

Margherita Crippa Chair

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Being a FN local leader : the ephemeral value of extraordinary gendered resources

This paper questions the gendered dimension of FN activists’ resources in order to become and remain party local leaders. Data come from observations and repeated interviews with FN male and female local party officials over a 4-year period (2013-2017). The once-male-dominated FN activists’ groups and local elected bodies now admit more women in their ranks (Crépon et al. 2015). This may affect the crucial resources to run for local offices, and possibly pursue a partisan career. More than ever before, being a woman is an asset to run for some leadership positions within the FN. How do FN activists adapt to such transformation? Recent literature has shown that, following the feminisation of the French political arena, alleged feminine virtues such as caring have become traditional resources to make a political career (Navarre et al. 2013). FN activists, more than activists of other parties, need to put forward “feminine” qualities to prove their party to be modern and normalised. What is the real value of feminine resources in the partisan realm? How do female and male activists put them on? How do these resources influence activists’ trajectories in the middle run? We will consider the value of “normalised” gendered resources with respect to both traditional far-right resources - partisan seniority - and other “normalised” resources : high professional status and political experience. If “normalised” resources, gender and high professional status allow women to emerge as political leaders, more traditional far-right resources are necessary to progress within the party rank as a woman.

Bibliography:
CREPON, Sylvain ; LEBOURG, Nicolas, “Le renouvellement du militantisme
frontiste », In: Sylvain Crépon et al., Les faux-semblants du Front national, Paris, Presses
de Sciences Po (P.F.N.S.P.), 2015, p. 435-452.
NAVARRE, Maud, GATEAU, Matthieu, SCHEPENS, Florent, Quoi de neuf depuis la parité ? Du genre dans la construction des rôles politiques, Dijon, Éditions universitaires de Dijon, 2013.

Margherita Crippa

IRISSO/Paris Dauphine

 

Beliefs of FN elected women: embodying “traditional” and “working” values

My paper intends to examine the perception of FN female leaders of their candidacy in an electoral roll for the European Parliament or of their mandate as members of European Parliament. Even if they are (self)presented as « mothers » (« housewife », « mother of large families ») or « leader’s or activist’s wife » in official speeches or manifestos for electoral campaigns (especially before the 2000s), they may claim responsibilities and some “male” willingness and competences. The 2003 legal requirement to form electoral rolls with strict parity and the accession of Marine Le Pen at the head of the FN in 2011 allowed more FN statements in favour of women’s participation to elections, even if such claims were not new among far-right female activists. Based on a 3 years ethnography inside the European Parliament, this paper takes into account female senses of self to question « allowed feminities » in the rank of far-right partisan elites in the 2010s. Attached to “traditions”, strongly opposed to “feminism”, far-right MEPs may defend several positions : from “female identities”, to “reversed rights” (the “right to stay home and raise children”) to legitimate status of working women, and homosexual rights. Those different narratives are due to their age, their role within the FN delegation, their former careers, and their social backgrounds.

Estelle Delaine

CESSP/EHESS

 

Gays’ political stances in the National Front: accommodating far-right political preferences, traditional norms of gender and sexuality, and gay self-identification

The French Front National’s discourse was originally characterized by sexism and homophobia (Crépon, 2015), and despite the “progressive” developments, the far-right organization is still criticized for the heterosexist attitudes of some of its members. Based on semi-directive interviews conducted with gay FN members at the local level, this paper seeks to analyze how they might support a political party that do not favor – and even sometimes actively oppose – LGBT+ rights policies, such as same-sex marriage. Thus, it examines the articulation between their political commitment, the values they defend regarding gender and sexuality, and their self-identification as gay. Two main logics shape the collected narratives. First, they reproduce heteronormativity by defending a hierarchy between sexualities and by depreciating the lack of virility and the so-called LGBT+ “communitarianism”. Rather than challenging traditional gendered society, they sometimes reinforce “ordinary” heterosexism. The in-depth study of gay FN members’ trajectories provides a better understanding of both their perception of homosexuality and their political behavior. Second, militants’ discourses rely on “homonationalism” (Puar, 2007): they claim for example a “right to security” in order to stigmatize immigrants and French Muslims that would be inherently homophobic and aggressive. This nationalist rhetoric allows them to conciliate gay identification and far-right activism. Finally, it leads us to question the visibility of their homosexuality inside the political organization and to explore the possible role of homosexual sociability in militants’ trajectories.

Bibliography:
PUAR Jasbir K., Terrorist Assemblages : Homonationalism in Queer Times, Durham, Duke University Press, 2007.
CREPON Sylvain, “La politique des mœurs au Front National”. In : Crépon Sylvain, Dézé Alexandre, Mayer Nonna (dir.), Les faux-semblants du Front National, Paris, Presses de Sciences Po, 2015, pp. 185-206.

Maialen Pagiusco

LaSSP/IEP de Toulouse

 

The National Front subordinates

Based on a field survey conducted in a rural popular town in eastern France, the paper examine the political experiences of National Front’s female activists when they are strongly dominated from a gender perspective (as women), a class perspective (as precarious) and sometimes even a racial perspective (some are members of ethnic minorities). We will ask first how nationalist political commitment can, forgivably, provide these women with support for empowerment and symbolic recognition in the local space. We will then show that, despite the "anti-system" discourse displayed by the FN, the practical functioning of the apparatus and the local militant group reproduces the dominations these women suffer, systematically assigning them to a subordinate militant status.

Raphaël Challier

CRESSPA-GTM/Université Paris 8

 

Banal femonationalism : gender norms, nationalism and racialization among National Front voters

Drawing on ethnographic data I collected during two years in a city from southern France, this paper analyses the way National Front voters justify their vote and their hostility towards immigrants and French Muslims. More precisely, I will focus on how specific gender norms nurture and shape anti-immigration and anti-islam discourses and practices. In her famous work on “femonationalism”, Sara Farris (2015) highlights how intellectuals, party leaders and national rulers invoke women's rights to stigmatize Muslim men, portraying Muslim women as victims who need to be emancipated. I will examine more ordinary discourses – everyday stories and anecdotes told by working and middle-class voters (men and women) – to document how “banal femonationalism” (Billig, 2015) can produce a similar hierarchy between “dangerous” men and “innocent” women – both racialized. However, I argue that, in some contexts, Muslim women, especially when they wear visible religious signs, may also be the targets of anger and hostility. In this case, they are not considered as passive victims but rather as full-fledged actors of a so-called “invasion” of France. Thus, I contend that “banal femonationalism” establishes that feminist emancipation is incompatible with the practice of islam, and that this type of Muslims' exclusion may help us understand the relationship between national sovereignty, racialization of religion and “sexual democracy” (Fassin, 2012).

Bibliography:
BILLIG Michael, Banal Nationalism, London: Sage Publications, 2015.
FARRIS Sarah, In the Name of Women′s Rights: The Rise of Femonationalism, London, Duke university press, 2015
FASSIN Eric, “Sexual Democracy and the New Racialization of Europe”, Journal of Civil Society, Volume 8, 2012 - Issue 3: “Changing the Debate on European Social Space”, p.285-288.

Félicien Faury

IRISSO/Université Paris Dauphine