History of Far-right Movements in France - Fifth Republic

Fifth Republic

Jean-Marie Le Pen founded the Front National (FN) party in 1972, along with former Organisation de l'armée secrète (OAS) member Jacques Bompard, former Collaborationist Roland Gaucher, François Duprat, who introduced the negationist thesis to France, and others nostalgics of Vichy France, Catholic fundamentalists, etc. Le Pen presented himself for the first time in the 1974 presidential election, obtaining 0.74%. The electoral rise of the FN did not start until Jean-Pierre Stirbois's victory, in 1983, in Dreux. The FN became stronger throughout the 1980s, managing to unite most far-right tendencies, passing electoral alliances with the right-wing Rally for the Republic (RPR), while some FN members quit the party to join the RPR or the Union for a French Democracy (UDF). At the 1986 legislative elections, the FN managed to obtain 35 seats, with 10% of the votes.

Meanwhile, other far-right tendencies gathered in Alain de Benoist's Nouvelle Droite think-tank, heading a pro-European line. Some radical members of the "national revolutionary" tendency quit the FN to form other minor parties (Party of New Forces, PFN, and French and European Nationalist Party, PNFE).