Jan Schulze Buschoff

New party line and the attempt to assume power: How Marine Le Pen transforms the Rassemblement national from a fringe group to a people’s party

Until 2018 the French right-wing extremist party National Rally did business under the name of National Front. Since its change of leadership in 2011, the party transformed to a middle-class image. Despite its effort to „dedemonise“ itself from right-wing extremist prejudices, the party remains within a right-wing extremist structure. This raises the question how this party is able to defend democratic-republican values not only by tolerating its right-wing extremist disposition, but by promoting it. This contradiction between seemingly democratic actions and nationalistic thinking requires an accurate investigation of the National Rally. The aim of my project is to determine what communicative strategies the party uses to get rid of its right-wing extremist image. Therefore, I work with the Hegemonic Theory from Laclau and Mouffe to use it within a discourse analysis so as to expose the approach of the NR.