WI: France under FN?

Let's say that France is under control of the National Front, what happens under an FN administration?

What exactly does "control" by the FN mean?

If it means a president from the FN, that is unlikely but not totally implausible--if, say, in 2017, Marine Le Pen had faced Jean-Luc Mélenchon rather than Emmanuel Macron in the runoff (though I think she'd still lose).

If it means a FN majority in the National Assembly, that is something very difficult to get: in the 2017 election, the FN won eight seats out of 577; in 2012, they won two seats, in 2007 and 2002 *none*, in 1997 and 1993, one, etc. You have to go back to 1986, for them to get 35 seats, and that was because Mitterand had deliberately revived party-list proportional representation to strengthen the FN and weaken the Republican Right--an experiment that was not repeated. (And even if it had been, the FN would still have fallen far short of a majority in every election).
 

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What exactly does "control" by the FN mean?

in the 2017 election, the FN won eight seats out of 577; in 2012, they won two seats, in 2007 and 2002 *none*, in 1997 and 1993, one, etc.
That is an artifact of the "instant run-off" system where the main stream parties gang up on FN in the playoffs.
In a FPTP system the FN could well end up with a majority or - easier done - as the largest party in parliament.
A proportional system also would give the FN many more seats, as there would be no sentiment of "wasting one's vote as they won't get in anyway".
 
If it means a president from the FN, that is unlikely but not totally implausible--if, say, in 2017, Marine Le Pen had faced Jean-Luc Mélenchon rather than Emmanuel Macron in the runoff (though I think she'd still lose).
Disagree. The best way to get a President Le Pen is to have Marine Le Pen face off against Fillion, as polling showed her doing better against Fillion compared to Melenchon or Macron.
 
Let's say that France is under control of the National Front, what happens under an FN administration?

Economics
Neoliberal economics as per usual, given the FNs main funders (it's true that Le Pen ran on a very social plattform, but that's quite normal for right-wing parties; just consider the NSDAP's platform). Social benefits are cut for "foreigners", to appease the mob. Rights of employees and of trade unions are limited. It's unlikely that the FN would leave the Euro (or the EU), because France hugely benefits from it. However, they might blame their problems on the EU, just like Orban does on a regular base.

Foreign policy
No progress in the European unification progress. A France led by Marine Le Pen might try to cooperate with Russia, but that's what Trump said too, before he continued the old American foreign policy. Stronger cooperation with other populist regimes in Poland and Hungary.

Interior
The funding of the police would be increased and the new forces used against minorities like Roma and Arabs. Rights of the accused are reduced, harsh punishments imposed on petty crimes in the name of "deterrence" (naturally, it would hit racial minorities most of the time). No major constitutional changes, as the FN declared its committment to the Fifth French Republic.

Social
Same-sex marriage is unlikely to be repealed, since the issue has lost most of its controversy. However, abortions might become harder, even if an outright ban on abortions would be met with a terrible social backlash against the FN (consider what happened in a conservative country like Poland, when the current government tried to do something similar).
Critical organizations like theatres etc. might be defunded, NGOs labelled as foreign agents and the public media tightly controlled by the government (again, this is modelled on what happened in Hungary).

It wouldn't be an outright fascist regime, but a very oppresive democracy, putting emphasis on the "will of the people" and on majority rule.
 
In this post, I assume that they win in 2017 (I can't see them win in any other election, and even that one seem implausible).

It wouldn't be an outright fascist regime, but a very oppresive democracy, putting emphasis on the "will of the people" and on majority rule.

I think that is only the first phase of what they will do. As in Hungary, they will start off like that. However, the fifth republic gives a lot of power in the hand of the president. With good use of the institution, the FN can and will try to erode the democratic part.

If they do it well (as in keeping Philippot, an enarque who knows how to use the powers given to them), they can manage to do worse than Hungary and Victor Orban in term of public liberties and completely destroy the democratic process while keeping the appearance of a democracy. But that is if they truly play their hand well (which I don't think they can). Actually, I can see the Le Pen (whoever wins) starting by pushing Phillipot aside, as they don't truly like him and his ideas. They used him to get power, and now, they will think he is useless.

Then they will try to do things as they want, first by orchestrating troubles. However, I don't think they can behave under the appearance of democracy. Thus, they will become more and more opressive really fast. And all the idiots who follow them will believe they can do anything they want now. What I think will happen then is massive rise in police violence and systematic attack on the judicial system, until they can completely control it. However, doing so will alinate them the majority of the population, and thus making their hold on power shakier and shakier. I don't see this end well, but it can go multiple ways, the one I find more plausible is them being ousted from power quite fast.

So I see two main possibility:
First they keep Philippot and manage to turn the regime in a sort of Hungary on steroids (i.e. authoritarian regime with the appearance of democracy).
Or they push him aside and go too far too fast, and lose their girp on France.
 
Even Hamon's and Mélenchon's gang would have voted for Fillon to prevent Le Pen. Le Pen had only a chance against Mélenchon, and even then she might have lost.
I know this is a popular opinion but it's not actually borne out by the available facts, polls generally showed that Fillon was the weakest candidate against Le Pen and that Mélenchon would do alright. You could say that this was the result of Mélenchon v. Le Pen being an unlikely hypothesis and that opinion would change if the French public were actually faced with the choice but at that level of speculation we might as well be making stuff up.
 
Disagree. The best way to get a President Le Pen is to have Marine Le Pen face off against Fillion, as polling showed her doing better against Fillion compared to Melenchon or Macron.

The most recent poll before the first round showed her trailing Mélenchon by only 54-46. (Odoxa 21 Apr 2017) The same poll showed her losing to Fillon by 57-43. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_French_presidential_election,_2017 I know that some other polls showed Fillon to be the (relatively) weakest opponent for Le Pen, but I was using the latest poll.
 
The most recent poll before the first round showed her trailing Mélenchon by only 54-46. (Odoxa 21 Apr 2017) The same poll showed her losing to Fillon by 57-43. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_French_presidential_election,_2017 I know that some other polls showed Fillon to be the (relatively) weakest opponent for Le Pen, but I was using the latest poll.
So you looked at one poll, and completely ignored every poll that had been released from February-April showing Fillion doing worse then Melenchon (which the vast majority of them did, by the way)?
 
That is an artifact of the "instant run-off" system where the main stream parties gang up on FN in the playoffs.
In a FPTP system the FN could well end up with a majority or - easier done - as the largest party in parliament.
A proportional system also would give the FN many more seats, as there would be no sentiment of "wasting one's vote as they won't get in anyway".

FN got 13.20 percent of the vote in the first round of the legislative elections in 2017--behind The Republicans as well as La République En Marche: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_legislative_election,_2017 That is not going to get you a majority under any system. But in any event France is not going to change to FPTP--precisely its possibility of giving an extremist party a majority of the seats would make it very unlikely to be adopted. (And it is not historically a system much favored in France which has used either two round elections or PR.) As for PR, Mitterand's use of it to weaken the mainstream Right and strengthen the FN in 1986 gave it a bad reputation, so France was very unlikely to revert to it. But even if it did, FN would fall way short of a majority.

BTW, France has runoffs but not "instant runoff."
 
So you looked at one poll, and completely ignored every poll that had been released from February-April showing Fillion doing worse then Melenchon (which the vast majority of them did, by the way)?

I think either of them would have done worse than Macron, but not enough to allow Le Pen to win. Apart from Odaxa, the latest poll before the first round was Elabe of April 19-20, which showed Fillon beating Le Pen 59-41 and Mélenchon beating her 60-40--not a significant difference IMO.

Anyway, I wrote "--if, say, in 2017, Marine Le Pen had faced Jean-Luc Mélenchon rather than Emmanuel Macron in the runoff (though I think she'd still lose)." I think the "say" indicates it was just an example, not a dogmatic statement that Mélenchon would be Le Pen's weakest opponent. The point was that a Le Pen victory in the presidential election, though unlikely, was at least more plausible than an FN majority in the National Assembly.
 
This is interesting. A contingency plan for a Le Pen victory drawn up by the French government was leaked after the 2017 election. It essentially was a plan to allow her to take office but not have any power.

The plan probably would have worked because of a feature of the French political system. France is essentially a parliamentary system disguised as a presidential system. While the head of state has greater powers than normal in parliamentary system, for example the President is not bound to take the advice of the Prime Minister, in the end it is the Prime Minister, dependent on a majority in the Assembly, who runs the government. Since the President is popularly elected, the President is usually head of the party that has the majority in the Assembly and can name and dismiss Prime Ministers at will. But the three occasions in the Fifth Republic where this wasn't the case revealed that a President without a legislative majority would be pretty powerless.

And there was no chance of the FN getting a legislative majority in 2017, even coming off of a victory in the presidential election, though they would have gotten more than the 13% of the vote they did get. The Prime Minister would probably been Fillon or someone like him, but it would not have been Le Pen's choice.
 
What if she agreed to stay quiet if France left the euro.? The ideal of national sovereignty le belle france is key since the day of the sun king.
 
What if she agreed to stay quiet if France left the euro.? The ideal of national sovereignty le belle france is key since the day of the sun king.
The EU is still seen in here as a possible tool for France to exert her influence over Europe, and to be able to project more world wide.
France leaving the Euro weakens France's power in the "inner group" the Eurozone represents, and which drives Europe.
 
This is interesting. A contingency plan for a Le Pen victory drawn up by the French government was leaked after the 2017 election. It essentially was a plan to allow her to take office but not have any power.

The plan probably would have worked because of a feature of the French political system. France is essentially a parliamentary system disguised as a presidential system. While the head of state has greater powers than normal in parliamentary system, for example the President is not bound to take the advice of the Prime Minister, in the end it is the Prime Minister, dependent on a majority in the Assembly, who runs the government. Since the President is popularly elected, the President is usually head of the party that has the majority in the Assembly and can name and dismiss Prime Ministers at will. But the three occasions in the Fifth Republic where this wasn't the case revealed that a President without a legislative majority would be pretty powerless.

And there was no chance of the FN getting a legislative majority in 2017, even coming off of a victory in the presidential election, though they would have gotten more than the 13% of the vote they did get. The Prime Minister would probably been Fillon or someone like him, but it would not have been Le Pen's choice.

It's not like the issue of what happens when one party controls the presidency and the other the National Assembly was a theoretical one before 2017. There had been three experiences with it--Mitterrand-Chirac Period (1986–1988), Mitterrand-Balladur Period (1993–1995), and Chirac–Jospin Period (1997–2002). "Some scholars {Lijphart, 1999: 110} contend that French Fifth Republic usually operates under a presidential system, but when in cohabitation, this effectively changes, at least in terms of domestic policy, to a parliamentary system, in which the prime minister controls the legislative agenda and the president's powers are limited to foreign policy and defence." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cohabitation_(government)#France

Le Pen incidentally did get support from one prominent non-FN politician, and said she would name him as Premier: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Dupont-Aignan But even the combination of FN and Dupont-Aignon's Debout la France is very unlikely to get a majority.
 
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