Publisher's Synopsis
How can a nation associated with the Declaration of the Rights of Man serve as the context for a successful populist party of the far right? Fascism, Populism and the French fifth Republic brings to the fore the reasons behind this apparent paradox. The author argues that Fifth Republican France offers an ideal set of opportunities for Jean Marie Le Pen's party. Far from preventing the rise of extreme right populist parties, the nature of French democratic institutions and France's intellectual traditions encourage the development of populist parties of the right and the extreme right and grants them a measure of success, while nevertheless succeeding in keeping them out of the main decision-making arenas. Using the tools of comparative politics to examine the ideological components of the French Front National and the manner in which these have interacted with contemporary French Institutions, Fieschi shows how, since 1958, French Institutions have provided the FN with numerous ways in which to permeate French politics as well as how JM Le Pen, in particular, organised the party's strategy in order to best respond to the opportunities offered.;Unlike most other books on the far right in France this account uses a historical institutional analysis and a comparative politics framework to shed light on the phenomenon of the FN. In this respect the analysis is broader and more analytically sophisticated and gestures at the potential for such an analysis to be transposed on to other cases.
