Dealing with the BNP: Britain must learn from French mistakes

The British National Party’s capture of two seats in the recent elections for the European Parliament has given the BNP both a new level of representation and a significant boost to its coffers. More money still will be on offer if the disparate forces of the far right are able to cobble together a unique European parliamentary grouping of their own.

Though the BNP’s total vote actually went down in the two constituencies where it won seats, this was clearly a breakthrough of sorts. But does it mark a significant new departure point for the far right in Britain or could its appeal prove just as resistible as that of similar parties in the past?



There are some instructive lessons for Britain—especially for our mainstream parties—from just across the Channel. In France the Front National had its own European dawn in 1984 when it won ten seats in the Strasbourg parliament. This was the start of an almost 20 year-long advance, which culminated in the presidential election of 2002. Then, the Front’s rumbustious veteran leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen, pushed the Socialist candidate into third place, winning through to the second-round run-off, where he secured nearly 18 per cent of the national vote. The Front National racked up impressive electoral gains along the way: in 1986 it won 35 seats in the French parliament.

The Front’s rise was a response to many of the same factors that have contributed to the BNP’s success: unemployment, alienation, a sense of dislocation, and especially the rupture of a long-standing tradition of working class political allegiance: in this case the collapse of the French Communist Party. The Front's focus on the perceived ills of immigration; its hostility to mondialisme (a threatening internationalism that gained currency in far-right circles long before globalisation became a more general buzz-word); and its chauvinistic nationalism all seemed to offer simple answers to questions with which the mainstream parties could only struggle. However, its rise was to an extent facilitated by many other factors. For a period the press seemed to pounce upon every one of the party’s pronouncements; playing up its significance while paradoxically enabling Le Pen himself to claim that he was often victimised by the media.

Above all, it was the mainstream French parties who were slow to see the real threat posed by the rising Front National. The declining Communists were not averse to doing a bit of rhetorical immigrant-bashing themselves. Many in the mainstream right-wing sought electoral deals with local Front candidates and in any case saw them as at least patriotic Frenchmen, in contrast to their disdain for the left. This cynicism was equally shared on the other side of the political spectrum. President Mitterrand’s decision to bring in a proportional form of voting for the 1986 general election was an effort to stem Socialist party losses, which he well knew would enable the Front to cause more problems for his mainstream conservative opponents.

So far the contrast with Britain is significant. The mainstream parties here all regard the BNP as beyond the pale. There has been a lot of talk about ensuring that national symbols like the cross of St George are not solely appropriated by the far right. Then of course there is an electoral system that famously affords very little opportunity for minor parties to break through.

However at a time when electoral reform is again on the agenda; when the allegiance of many traditional Labour voters seems to be waning and economic uncertainty is knocking on the door, the French experience should very much be borne in mind. It was the inability of French mainstream parties to tackle issues like insecurity and immigration without sounding like a pale reflection of the National Front that helped to legitimise its message. And institutional reform gave it a brief parliamentary breakthrough.

Yet the Front National does now seem to be in decline. At the last European election it won just a little over 6 per cent of the vote and three seats. Internal divisions; financial problems; an ageing leader and an uncertain succession have all contributed to its woes but, above all, the mainstream parties got their act together. Whatever the merits or otherwise of the current French government’s immigration policies, for example, they at least sound serious. Indeed clear-sighted government of either left or right is seen by many French commentators as the best rampart against the far right’s advance. The media too has progressively lost interest as the Front’s novelty wore off and its political fortunes declined.

The message of 2009 from France and Britain is that the ball is very much in the mainstream parties’ court. With the right policies, that take into account both widespread concerns and the need for social cohesion, there is no reason that the rise of Nick Griffin should be any less resistible than that of Jean-Marie Le Pen.

Jonathan Marcus is the Diplomatic Correspondent for the BBC World Service for whom he has broadcast on the far right’s political fortunes. He is the author of The National Front & French Politics: The Resistible Rise of Jean-Marie Le Pen, London, Macmillan 1995.