119-536: Pierre Poujade ( French: [pjɛʁ puʒad] ; 1 December 1920 – 27 August 2003) was a French populist politician after whom the Poujadist movement was named. Pierre Poujade was born in Saint-Céré (Le Lot), France, and studied at Collège Saint-Eugène d'Aurillac, a Roman Catholic private school. On the death of his father, an architect, in 1928, he was unable to afford the tuition and left school to work as
238-626: A pejorative . Within political science and other social sciences , several different definitions of populism have been employed, with some scholars proposing that the term be rejected altogether. A common framework for interpreting populism is known as the ideational approach: this defines populism as an ideology that presents "the people" as a morally good force and contrasts them against "the elite", who are portrayed as corrupt and self-serving. Populists differ in how "the people" are defined, but it can be based along class, ethnic, or national lines. Populists typically present "the elite" as comprising
357-618: A 2003 Le Monde interview, were "inciting racial hatred", and he was fined €10,000 and ordered to pay an additional €5,000 in damages to the Ligue des droits de l'homme (League for Human Rights). The conviction and fines were upheld by the Court of Cassation in 2006. Arguing that his party includes people of various ethnic or religious origins like Jean-Pierre Cohen, Farid Smahi or Huguette Fatna, he has attributed some anti-Semitism in France to
476-551: A Muslim candidate, Ahmed Djebbour, an Algerian, elected in 1957 as deputy of Paris. The next year, following his break with Poujade, he was reelected to the National Assembly as a member of the Centre National des Indépendants et Paysans (CNIP) party, led by Antoine Pinay . Le Pen claimed that he had lost his left eye when he was savagely beaten during the 1958 election campaign. Testimonies suggest that he
595-415: A Poujade. Populism Populism is a range of political stances that emphasize the idea of the common people and often position this group in opposition to a perceived elite group. It is frequently associated with anti-establishment and anti-political sentiment. The term developed in the late 19th century and has been applied to various politicians, parties and movements since that time, often as
714-595: A UDCA list, was Jean-Marie Le Pen , then leader of the youth branch of UDCA. Poujade was critical of the decolonization of Algeria, and of the European Defence Community . To justify his support for the Algerian War , Poujade declared in 1956 to Time Magazine: Big Wall Street syndicates found incredibly rich oil deposits in the Sahara , but instead of exploiting the discovery, they capped
833-537: A ceremony presided by traditionalist Catholic priest Philippe Laguérie . In 1977, Le Pen inherited a fortune from Hubert Lambert (1934–1976), son of the cement industrialist Leon Lambert (1877–1952), one of three sons of Lambert Cement founder Hilaire Lambert. Hubert Lambert was a political supporter of Le Pen and a monarchist as well. Lambert's will provided 30 million francs (equivalent to €19,000,000 in 2022) to Le Pen, as well as his opulent three-storey 11-room mansion at 8 Parc de Montretout, Saint-Cloud , in
952-695: A challenge in that they now represent a new elite. In such cases—like Chávez in Venezuela and Vladimír Mečiar in Slovakia—populists retain their anti-establishment rhetoric by making changes to their concept of "the elite" to suit their new circumstances, alleging that real power is not held by the government but other powerful forces who continue to undermine the populist government and the will of "the people" itself. In these instances, populist governments often conceptualise "the elite" as those holding economic power . In Venezuela, for example, Chávez blamed
1071-862: A citizen referendum. All other EU states, including France, ratified the treaty by parliamentary vote, despite a previous citizen referendum where over 55% of French voters rejected the European Reform Treaty (although that vote was on a different draft of the Treaty in the form of the Constitutional Treaty). After the Irish "No" vote, Le Pen addressed the French President Nicolas Sarkozy in the European Parliament , accusing him of furthering
1190-553: A common cause. One of the ways that populists employ the understanding of "the people" is in the idea that "the people are sovereign", that in a democratic state governmental decisions should rest with the population and that if they are ignored then they might mobilise or revolt. This is the sense of "the people" employed in the late 19th century United States by the People's Party and which has also been used by later populist movements in that country. A second way in which "the people"
1309-777: A deputy. Poujade died on 27 August 2003 in La Bastide-l'Évêque at the age of 82. His funeral was officiated in the Church of Saint John the Baptist in La Bastide-l'Eveque, on 30 August 2003. Although the UDCA has lost its influence, some of the ideas of Poujadism persist in modern French politics. In 1969, Gérard Nicoud started the CID-UNATI ( Comité Interprofessionnel de Défense-Union Nationale des Travailleurs Indépendants ),
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#17327830878011428-424: A dichotomy between inclusionary and exclusionary forms, such as right-wing populists welcoming culturally proximate migrants with transnational solidarity. Populists (claim to) speak in the name of the 'oppressed people', and they want to emancipate them by making them aware of their oppression. However, they do not want to change their values or their 'way of life.' This is fundamentally different from, for example,
1547-737: A discourse, ideology, or worldview. These definitions were initially employed largely in Western Europe, although later became increasingly popular in Eastern Europe and the Americas. According to this approach, populism is viewed as a "thin ideology" or "thin-centred ideology" which on its own is seen as too insubstantial to provide a blueprint for societal change. It thus differs from the "thick-centred" or "full" ideologies such as fascism , liberalism , and socialism, which provide more far-reaching ideas about social transformation. As
1666-414: A family of related concepts rather than as a single concept in itself. The confusion surrounding the term has led some scholars to suggest that it should be abandoned by scholarship. In contrast to this view, the political scientists Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser stated that "while the frustration is understandable, the term populism is too central to debates about politics from Europe to
1785-519: A figure who polarizes opinion, considered the "Devil of the Republic" among his opponents or the "last samurai in politics" among his supporters. He has been convicted for statements downplaying the Holocaust , and fined for incitement to discrimination regarding remarks made about Muslims in France . Le Pen's longevity in politics and his five attempts to become President of France have made him
1904-705: A given society, populists often exclude both themselves and those sympathetic to their cause even when they too are in positions of power. For instance, the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), a right-wing populist group, regularly condemned "the media" in Austria for defending "the elite", but excluded from that the Kronen Zeitung , a widely read tabloid that supported the FPÖ and its leader Jörg Haider . When populists take governmental power, they are faced with
2023-505: A highly emotional manner, or with political opportunism, to characterise politicians who exploit problems and seek to please voters without rational consideration as to the best course of action. Some scholars have linked populist policies to adverse economic outcomes, as "economic disintegration, decreasing macroeconomic stability, and the erosion of institutions typically go hand in hand with populist rule." Although frequently used by historians, social scientists, and political commentators,
2142-451: A homogeneous/pure people, or that it takes shape socially as an ideology. These assumptions can be counter-productive to the study of populism which has arguably become excessively conceptually deductive. Still, this does not mean we cannot come to a more minimal, formal definition of what populism is that can consensually group scholars and open up research to a broader scope, as indicated by Stavrakakis and De Cleen in defining populism as
2261-556: A large margin in the second round, when incumbent president Jacques Chirac obtained 82% of the votes, thus securing the biggest majority in the history of the Fifth Republic . In the 2004 regional elections , Le Pen intended to run for office in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region but was prevented from doing so because he did not meet the conditions for being a voter in that region: he neither lived there nor
2380-687: A major figure in French political life . His unexpected progress to the second round in the 2002 presidential election —where he would lose in a landslide to incumbent Jacques Chirac —left its mark on French public life, and the "21st of April" is now a frequently used expression in France. A former Member of the European Parliament (MEP), Le Pen served as the Honorary President of the National Front from 2011 to 2015. He
2499-636: A manual laborer. As a teenager, Poujade joined the Parti populaire français (PPF) of Jacques Doriot . From 1940 to 1942, Poujade supported the Révolution nationale of Philippe Pétain . After the invasion of the free zone by German forces, he joined the Free French Forces in Algiers , where he met his future wife, Yvette Seva, with whom he would have five children. After the war, Poujade
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#17327830878012618-540: A much stricter sense, generally being focused on a particular sociocultural group and antagonistic against minority groups. However, this is not exactly a pure dichotomy—exclusive populists can still give voice to those who feel marginalised by the political status quo and include minorities if it is advantageous, while inclusive populists can vary significantly in how inclusive they actually are. In addition, all populisms are implicitly exclusionary, since they define "the people" against "the elite", thus some scholars argue that
2737-402: A pejorative sense have subsequently embraced the term while seeking to shed it of negative connotations. The French far-right politician Jean-Marie Le Pen for instance was often accused of populism and eventually responded by stating that "Populism precisely is taking into account the people's opinion. Have people the right, in a democracy, to hold an opinion? If that is the case, then yes, I am
2856-639: A populist." Similarly, on being founded in 2003, the centre-left Lithuanian Labour Party declared: "we are and will be called populists." Following 2016, the year which saw the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States and the United Kingdom's vote to leave the European Union —both events linked to populism—the word populism became one of the most widely used terms by international political commentators. In 2017,
2975-432: A synonym for "the nation", whether that national community be conceived in either ethnic or civic terms. In such a framework, all individuals regarded as being "native" to a particular state, either by birth or by ethnicity, could be considered part of "the people". Left and right populists ... both regard representative democracy as being captivated by political elites and powerful interest groups. However, populists of
3094-587: A tax protest movement similar to the one of Poujade. Examples of recent political groups with strong Poujadist leanings include Le Pen's own National Front (which has a strong anti-tax message), the Comité de Défense des Commerçants et Artisans of Christian Poucet (that encouraged French shopkeepers to declare their business in Britain in order to avoid paying the French Social Security taxes), and
3213-579: A thin-centred ideology, populism is therefore attached to a thick-ideology by populist politicians. Thus, populism can be found merged with forms of nationalism, liberalism, socialism, federalism , or conservatism. According to Stanley, "the thinness of populism ensures that in practice it is a complementary ideology: it does not so much overlap with as diffuse itself throughout full ideologies." Populism is, according to Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser, "a kind of mental map through which individuals analyse and comprehend political reality". Mudde noted that populism
3332-516: A type of discourse ‘characterized by a people/elite distinction and the claim to speak in the name of "the people."’ As a result of the various different ideologies with which populism can be paired, the forms that populism can take vary widely. Populism itself cannot be positioned on the left–right political spectrum , and both right and left-wing populisms exist. Populist movements can also mix divisions between left and right, for instance by combining xenophobic attitudes commonly associated with
3451-653: A wide array of political actors". The political scientist Ben Stanley noted that "although the meaning of the term has proven controversial in the literature, the persistence with which it has recurred suggests the existence at least of an ineliminable core: that is, that it refers to a distinct pattern of ideas." Political scientist David Art argues that the concept of populism brings together disparate phenomena in an unhelpful manner, and ultimately obscures and legitimizes figures who are more comprehensively defined as nativists and authoritarians. Although academic definitions of populism have differed, most of them have focused on
3570-616: Is "moralistic rather than programmatic". It encourages a binary world-view in which everyone is divided into "friends and foes", with the latter being regarded not just as people who have "different priorities and values" but as being fundamentally "evil". In emphasising one's purity against the corruption and immorality of "the elite", from which "the people" must remain pure and untouched, populism prevents compromise between different groups. The incredible rise in research and discussion about populism, both academic and social, stems largely from efforts by ideational scholars to place centre stage
3689-420: Is French only as the word added to his name". Mendès was perceived as being responsible for the loss of French Indochina . Poujadism also supported the cause of French Algeria . In 1955, the UDCA was a strong political movement, with 400,000 members. Its adherents were encouraged to protest against taxes and withdraw their deposits from state-owned banks. The movement called for new Estates General to re-found
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3808-673: Is a French far-right politician who served as president of the National Front from 1972 to 2011 and Honorary President of the same party from 2011 to 2015. Le Pen focuses on issues related to immigration to France , the European Union , traditional culture and values , law and order , and France's high rate of unemployment . His progression in the 1980s is known as the "lepénisation of minds" due to its noticeable effect on mainstream political opinion. His controversial speeches and his integration into public life have made him
3927-407: Is a mistake to disqualify such people as racist. Their concerns are widespread, genuine and not to be dismissed. Populist xenophobes such as Nigel Farage exploit these emotions, linking them to subterranean English nationalism and talking, as he did in the moment of victory, of the triumph of "real people, ordinary people, decent people". This is the language of Orwell hijacked for the purposes of
4046-455: Is a product of "an antagonistic relationship" between "the people" and "the elite", and is "latent wherever the possibility occurs for the emergence of such a dichotomy". The political scientist Manuel Anselmi proposed that populism be defined as featuring a "homogeneous community-people" which "perceives itself as the absolute holder of popular sovereignty" and "expresses an anti-establishment attitude." This understanding conceives of populism as
4165-429: Is conceived by populists combines a socioeconomic or class based category with one that refers to certain cultural traditions and popular values. The concept seeks to vindicate the dignity of a social group who regard themselves as being oppressed by a dominant "elite" who are accused of treating "the people's" values, judgements, and tastes with suspicion or contempt. A third use of "the people" by populists employs it as
4284-661: Is rare given that the "people" and "elite" are typically of the same ethnicity. For some populist leaders and movements, the term "the elite" also refers to an academic or intellectual establishment and, as such, entails scholars, intellectuals, experts, or organized science as a whole. Such leaders and movements may criticise scientific knowledge as abstract, useless, and ideologically biased, and instead demand common sense , experiential knowledge, and practical solutions to be "true knowledge". Jean-Marie Le Pen Jean Louis Marie Le Pen (born 20 June 1928), known as Jean-Marie Le Pen ( French: [ʒɑ̃maʁi lə pɛn] ),
4403-411: Is seen to favour, such as immigrants, homosexuals, travellers, or communists. Populist leaders thus "come in many different shades and sizes" but, according to Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser, share one common element: "a carefully crafted image of the vox populi ". Stanley expressed the view that although there are "certain family resemblances" that can be seen between populist groups and individuals, there
4522-425: Is that it is in an "adversarial relationship" with "the people". In defining "the elite", populists often condemn not only the political establishment, but also the economic elite, cultural elite, academic elite, and the media elite, which they present as one homogeneous, corrupt group. In early 21st century India, the populist Bharatiya Janata Party for instance accused the dominant Indian National Congress party,
4641-701: The Cambridge Dictionary declared it the Word of the Year . Until the 1950s, use of the term populism remained restricted largely to historians studying the People's Party, but in 1954 the US sociologist Edward Shils published an article proposing populism as a term to describe anti-elite trends in US society more broadly. Following on from Shils' article, during the 1960s the term "populism" became increasingly popular among sociologists and other academics in
4760-479: The Service d'Action Civique (Civic Action Service), a Gaullist organisation. SAC allegedly employed figures with organized crime backgrounds and from the far-right movement. Le Pen was briefly hospitalized after a minor stroke on 2 February 2022. Le Pen was hospitalized on 15 April 2023, after suffering a “mild heart attack ” and was discharged from the hospital on 3 May. In April 2024, Jean Marie Le Pen
4879-597: The Union de Défense des Commerçants et Artisans (UDCA; Defense Union of Shopkeepers and Craftsmen), to organize the tax protesters. This movement would soon be called " Poujadism " (French: Poujadisme ). Poujadism flourished most vigorously in the last years of the Fourth Republic , and articulated the economic interests and grievances of shopkeepers and other proprietor-managers of small businesses facing economic and social change. The main themes of Poujadism concerned
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4998-592: The Communist Party of India , NGOs, academia, and the English-language media of all being part of "the elite". When operating in liberal democracies, populists often condemn dominant political parties as part of "the elite" but at the same time do not reject the party political system altogether, instead either calling for or claiming to be a new kind of party different from the others. Although condemning almost all those in positions of power within
5117-475: The Holocaust which have been legally ruled to be Holocaust denial . He has been convicted of racism or inciting racial hatred at least six times. Thus, on 13 September 1987, he said, "I ask myself several questions. I'm not saying the gas chambers didn't exist. I haven't seen them myself. I haven't particularly studied the question. But I believe it's just a detail in the history of World War II ." For Le Pen,
5236-715: The Indochina war at the Geneva Conference . Le Pen was then sent to Suez in 1956, but arrived only after the cease-fire. In 1953, a year before the beginning of the Algerian War , he contacted President Vincent Auriol , who approved Le Pen's proposed volunteer disaster relief project after a flood in the Netherlands . Within two days, there were 40 volunteers from his university, a group that would later help victims of an earthquake in Italy. In Paris in 1956, he
5355-797: The Jesuit high school François Xavier in Vannes , then at the lycée of Lorient . In November 1944, aged 16, he was turned down (because of his age) by Colonel Henri de La Vaissière (then representative of the Communist Youth ) when he attempted to join the French Forces of the Interior (FFI). He then entered the faculty of law in Paris , and started to sell the monarchist Action Française 's newspaper, Aspects de la France , in
5474-509: The National Assembly "the biggest brothel in Paris" and the deputies a "pile of rubbish " and " paederasts "), a strong anti-intellectualism (Poujade denounced the graduates from the École Polytechnique as the main culprits for the woes of 1950s France and boasted that he had no book learning), xenophobia , and antisemitism , particularly aimed against Jewish Prime Minister Pierre Mendès France , with Poujade claiming "Mendès
5593-521: The Treaty of Lisbon ) which was signed by EU member states on 13 December 2007, and entered into force on 1 December 2009. In October 2007, Le Pen suggested that he would personally visit Ireland to assist the "No" campaign but finally changed his mind, fearing that his presence would be used against the supporters of the NO vote. Ireland finally refused to ratify the treaty. Ireland is the only EU country which had
5712-459: The Union des Contribuables Français . The magazine Le Cri du Contribuable owned by Nicolas Miguet also maintains the poujadist tradition. In France, Poujadisme is often used pejoratively to characterize any kind of ideology that declares itself anti-establishment or strongly criticizes the current French political system or political class, even when the anti-tax or anti-intellectual aspects of
5831-401: The left–right political spectrum , and there exist both left-wing populism and right-wing populism . Other scholars of the social sciences have defined the term populism differently. According to the popular agency definition used by some historians of United States history, populism refers to popular engagement of the population in political decision-making. An approach associated with
5950-677: The music industry , which specialized in historical recordings and sold recordings of the choir of the CGT trade-union and songs of the Popular Front , as well as Nazi marches. In 1972, Le Pen founded the Front National (FN) party. He then ran in the 1974 presidential election , obtaining 0.74% of the vote. In 1976, his Parisian flat was dynamited (he lived at that time in his mansion of Montretout in Saint-Cloud). The crime
6069-479: The social sciences . In 1967 a Conference on Populism was held at the London School of Economics , the participants of which failed to agree on a clear, single definition. As a result of this scholarly interest, an academic field known as "populism studies" emerged. Interest in the subject grew rapidly: between 1950 and 1960 about 160 publications on populism appeared, while between 1990 and 2000 that number
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#17327830878016188-660: The "Church of the Left". In some instances, particularly in Latin America and Africa, "the elites" are conceived not just in economic but also in ethnic terms, representing what political scientists have termed ethnopopulism . In Bolivia, for example, the left-wing populist leader Evo Morales juxtaposed the mestizo and indigenous "people" against an overwhelmingly European "elite", declaring that "We Indians [i.e. indigenous people] are Latin America's moral reserve". In
6307-528: The 'white world'. Ms. Le Pen then openly split with her father, saying he was committing 'political suicide'. But he vowed to 'reconquer' the party he founded in 1972. A French court decided in June of 2015 to cancel his suspension; although the members of the party were to hold a vote to accept or reject a whole series of measures aiming at changing the National Front 's status, including Le Pen's Honorary Presidency. On 10 July another French court ruled to suspend
6426-422: The (early) socialists, who want(ed) to 'uplift the workers' by re-educating them, thereby liberating them from their 'false consciousness'. For populists, on the other hand, the consciousness of the people, generally referred to as common sense, is the basis of all good (politics). Political scientist Cas Mudde For populists, "the people" are presented as being homogeneous, and also virtuous. In simplifying
6545-459: The 1980s, starting in the municipal elections of 1983. His popularity has been greatest in the south and east of France. The FN obtained 16 seats in the 1984 European elections . A total of 35 FN deputies entered the Assembly after the 1986 elections (the only legislative elections held under proportional representation), which were won by the right wing, bringing Jacques Chirac to Matignon in
6664-476: The 1981 and 1988 presidential elections, Poujade favored François Mitterrand , while in the 1995 election he voiced his support for Jacques Chirac . In 1984, Pierre Poujade was appointed to the Conseil économique et social by Mitterrand. Poujade used this position to promote biofuels . Poujade distanced himself from Le Pen and declared in 2002 that he would have preferred to break his own leg than to make him
6783-717: The 1990s, populism was often associated with politicians like Peru's Alberto Fujimori who promoted neoliberal economics, while in the 2000s it was instead associated with those like Venezuela's Hugo Chávez who promoted socialist programs. As well as populists of the left and right, populist figures like Italy's Beppe Grillo have been characterised as centrist and liberal , while groups like Turkey's Justice and Development Party have been described as combining populism with Islamism , and India's Bharatiya Janata Party has been seen as mixing populism with Hindu nationalism . Although populists of different ideological traditions can oppose each other, they can also form coalitions, as
6902-589: The American Tea Party movement with Poujadism. In a May 2016 editorial, The New York Times columnist Ross Douthat identified Donald Trump as a Poujadist. British historian Timothy Garton Ash used Poujade in discussing the British vote to leave the European Union . In a piece published in The Guardian in June 2016, he wrote about some of those who voted for Brexit , saying that: It
7021-475: The Americas to simply do away with." Similarly, Canovan noted that the term "does have comparatively clear and definite meanings in a number of specialist areas" and that it "provides a pointer, however shaky, to an interesting and largely unexplored area of political and social experience". The political scientists Daniele Albertazzi and Duncan McDonnell thought that "if carefully defined, the term 'populism' can be used profitably to help us understand and explain
7140-585: The Bolivian case, this was not accompanied by a racially exclusionary approach, but with an attempt to build a pan-ethnic coalition which included European Bolivians against the largely European Bolivian elite. In South Africa, the populist Julius Malema has presented black South Africans as the "people" whom he claims to represent, calling for the expropriation of land owned by the white minority without compensation. In areas like Europe where nation-states are more ethnically homogeneous, this ethnopopulist approach
7259-611: The FN's removal of Le Pen as its honorary president, he continued to officially hold the position. In August 2015, Le Pen was expelled from the National Front after a special party congress. He has since founded the Comités Jeanne . Blue, White and Red Rally ( French : Rassemblement Bleu Blanc Rouge ) is a French nationalist political association in France founded by Le Pen on 5 September 2015 after his August expulsion from
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#17327830878017378-759: The FN. He told supporters in the city: 'You will not be orphans. We can act in a similar way to the FN, even if we are not part of it.' Marine Le Pen, the leader of the Front National remarked 'He does what he wants, he is a free man.' He confirmed he would support his granddaughter Marion Maréchal-Le Pen for the next regional elections and that he wanted to influence the National Front 's ideology with his association. He also praised Marine Le Pen's speech in Marseille on 6 September 2015, describing it as "lepéniste". Le Pen's marriage to Pierrette Le Pen from 29 June 1960 to 18 March 1987 resulted in three daughters, who have given him eight grandchildren. The break-up of
7497-476: The French Foreign Legion. He was then sent to Algeria (1957) as an intelligence officer . He has been accused of having engaged in torture . Le Pen has denied these accusations, although he admitted knowing of its use. Defunct Defunct Le Pen directed the 1965 presidential campaign of far-right candidate Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour , who obtained 5.19% of the votes. He insisted on
7616-571: The French political regime, and published the Fraternité Française newspaper. The UDCA secured 52 seats in the 1956 elections . "Experts said he might win six to eight seats", The Saturday Evening Post wrote. "A great many political leaders, including M. Faure two years ago, have promised to do something about [the tax system]. If they had made good, Poujadism would never have been born". The youngest member of parliament, elected on
7735-400: The French presidential elections in 1974, 1988, 1995, 2002, and 2007. As noted above, he was not able to run for office in 1981, having failed to gather the necessary 500 signatures of elected officials. In the presidential elections of 2002 , Le Pen obtained 16.86% of the votes in the first round of voting. This was enough to qualify him for the second round, as a result of the poor showing by
7854-481: The PS candidate and incumbent prime minister Lionel Jospin and the scattering of votes among 15 other candidates. This was a major political event, both nationally and internationally, as it was the first time someone with such far-right views had qualified for the second round of the French presidential elections. There was a widespread stirring of national public opinion as virtually the entire French political spectrum from
7973-522: The agenda of a "cabal of international finance and free market fanatics." Ireland has since accepted the treaty in a second Lisbon referendum. After Le Pen left office in January 2011, his daughter Marine Le Pen was elected by the adherents of the party against Bruno Gollnisch . He became honorary chairman of the party and won his seat again at the European elections in 2014 . On 4 May 2015, Le Pen
8092-407: The centre-right to the left united in fierce opposition to Le Pen's ideas. More than one million people in France took part in street rallies; slogans such as "A crook is better than a fascist" ("Un escroc mieux qu'un facho") and "Graft rather than hate, Chirac rather than Le Pen" ("L'arnaque plutôt que la haine, Chirac plutôt que Le Pen") were heard in opposition to Le Pen. Le Pen was then defeated by
8211-518: The common use of the term Populism to refer to far-right nativism and racism, noting that the original People's Party was relatively liberal on the rights of women and minorities by the standards of the time. The V-Party Dataset assesses populism as anti-elitism and people-centrism. A thin-centred ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogenous and antagonistic camps, "the pure people" versus "the corrupt elite", and which argues that politics should be an expression of
8330-427: The complexities of reality, the concept of "the people" is vague and flexible, with this plasticity benefitting populists who are thus able to "expand or contract" the concept "to suit the chosen criteria of inclusion or exclusion" at any given time. In employing the concept of "the people", populists can encourage a sense of shared identity among different groups within a society and facilitate their mobilisation toward
8449-526: The defense of the common man against the elites. In addition to the protest against the income tax and the price control imposed by finance minister Antoine Pinay to limit inflation, Poujadism was opposed to industrialization , urbanization , and American-style modernization , which were perceived as a threat to the identity of rural France. Poujadism denounced the French state as "rapetout et inhumain" ("thieving and inhuman"). The movement's "common man" populism led to antiparliamentarism (Poujade called
8568-435: The difference between populisms is not whether a particular populism excludes but whom it excludes from its conception of "the people". Anti-elitism is widely considered the central characteristic feature of populism, although Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser argued that anti-elitism alone was not evidence of populism. Rather, according to Stanley, in populist discourse the "fundamental distinguishing feature" of "the elite"
8687-544: The economic elite for frustrating his reforms, while in Greece, the left-wing populist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras accused "the lobbyists and oligarchs of Greece" of undermining his administration. In populist instances like these, the claims made have some basis in reality, as business interests seek to undermine leftist-oriented economic reform. Although left-wing populists who combine populist ideas with forms of socialism most commonly present "the elite" in economic terms,
8806-615: The effects of Muslim immigration to Europe and suggested that some part of the Jewish community in France might eventually come to appreciate National Front ideology. Le Pen has denied man-made climate change and has linked climate science with communism . He also infamously compared gay people to soup with salt, saying "it's like salt with soup: if there is not enough, it's too bland, and if it's too much, it's undrinkable" and compared pedophilia with "the exaltation of homosexuality". Le Pen has made several provocative statements concerning
8925-417: The far-right British National Party conceived of the "native British people" as its heartland. Mudde noted that for populists, "the people" "are neither real nor all-inclusive, but are in fact a mythical and constructed sub-set of the whole population". They are an imagined community, much like the imagined communities embraced and promoted by nationalists. Populism often entails presenting "the people" as
9044-400: The far-right with redistributive economic policies closer to those of the left. [Populism's] core consists of four distinct but interrelated concepts: The ideational definition of populism used by Ben Stanley The ideologies with which populism can be paired can be contradictory, resulting in different forms of populism that can oppose each other. For instance, in Latin America during
9163-575: The first cohabitation government (that is, the combination of a right-wing Prime minister, Chirac, with a socialist President, Mitterrand). In Paris, Jean-Marie Le Pen was elected to the National Assembly. In 1984, Le Pen won a seat in the European Parliament and has been consistently reelected since then. In 1988 he lost his reelection bid for the French National Assembly in the Bouches-du-Rhône 's 8th constituency. He
9282-467: The first major use of the term in English was by members of the left-leaning agrarian People's Party and its predecessors, which were active in the United States from around 1889 to 1909. The Russian and American movements differed in various respects. In the 1920s, the term entered the French language , where it was used to describe a group of writers expressing sympathy for ordinary people. As
9401-516: The idea that it should reference some form of relationship between "the people" and "the elite", and that it entailed taking an anti-establishment stance. Beyond that, different scholars have emphasised different features that they wish to use to define populism. These differences have occurred both within specific scholarly disciplines and among different disciplines, varying for instance among scholars focusing on different regions and different historical periods. Author Thomas Frank has criticized
9520-461: The marriage was somewhat dramatic, with his ex-wife posing nude, to ridicule him, in the French edition of Playboy which printed 100,000 more than the normal production of 150,000 nevertheless needed to print a second printing of 150,000, to satisfy demand. Marie-Caroline , one of his daughters, broke with Le Pen, following her husband to join Bruno Mégret , who split from the FN to found
9639-582: The military, he studied political science and law at Panthéon-Assas University . His graduate thesis, submitted in 1971 by him and Jean-Loup Vincent, was titled Le courant anarchiste en France depuis 1945 or ("The anarchist movement in France since 1945"). After receiving his law degree, he enlisted in the Foreign Legion . He arrived in Indochina after the 1954 battle of Dien Bien Phu , which had been lost by France and which prompted French Prime Minister Pierre Mendès France to put an end to
9758-435: The original Poujadism are absent. For instance, Le Monde diplomatique was accused of poujado-marxisme in the 1990s. In a 1990 pamphlet, reissued in 2012, Christopher Hitchens refers to a "... Poujadiste female with ideas above her station", presumably a reference to Margaret Thatcher and her humble origins as a Grantham grocer's daughter. In February 2010, The New York Times commentator Robert Zaretsky compared
9877-489: The political mainstream or a threat to democracy . The political scientists Yves Mény and Yves Surel noted that "populism" had become "a catchword, particularly in the media, to designate the newborn political or social movements which challenge the entrenched values, rules and institutions of democratic orthodoxy." Typically, the term is used against others, often in a pejorative sense to discredit opponents. Some of those who have repeatedly been referred to as "populists" in
9996-565: The political scientist Ernesto Laclau presents populism as an emancipatory social force through which marginalised groups challenge dominant power structures. Some economists have used the term in reference to governments which engage in substantial public spending financed by foreign loans, resulting in hyperinflation and emergency measures. In popular discourse — where the term has often been used pejoratively — it has sometimes been used synonymously with demagogy , to describe politicians who present overly simplistic answers to complex questions in
10115-441: The political scientist Carlos de la Torre defined populism as "a Manichean discourse that divides politics and society as the struggle between two irreconcilable and antagonistic camps: the people and the oligarchy or the power block." In this understanding, note Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser, "populism always involves a critique of the establishment and an adulation of the common people", and according to Ben Stanley, populism itself
10234-516: The political scientist Paul Taggart has said of populism that it is "one of the most widely used but poorly understood political concepts of our time". In 1858, an English translator for Alphonse de Lamartine used the term as an antonym for "aristocratic". In the Russian Empire in the 1860s and 1870s, a left-leaning agrarian group referred to itself as the narodniki , which has often been translated into English as populists . But
10353-514: The political, economic, cultural, and media establishment, depicted as a homogeneous entity and accused of placing their own interests, and often the interests of other groups—such as large corporations, foreign countries, or the ruling political party—above the interests of "the people". According to the ideational approach, populism is often combined with other ideologies, such as nationalism, liberalism, socialism , capitalism or consumerism . Thus, populists can be found at different locations along
10472-449: The question. But I believe it's just a detail in the history of World War II." In 1996, he stated that "If you take a 1,000-page book on World War II, the concentration camps take up only two pages and the gas chambers 10 to 15 lines. This is what one calls a detail," and he made similar statements before the European Parliament in 2008 and 2009. Le Pen dismissed the hearing as a 'mockery' and an 'ambush' and blamed Ms. Le Pen of pulling
10591-575: The rehabilitation of the Collaborationists , declaring that: Was General de Gaulle more brave than Marshal Pétain in the occupied zone? This isn't sure. It was much easier to resist in London than to resist in France. In 1962, Le Pen lost his seat in the Assembly. In 1963, he created the Serp ( Société d'études et de relations publiques [ fr ] ) firm, a company involved in
10710-525: The right tend to express envy for those low on the social ladder, identifying 'special interests' with ethnic or other minorities. Progressive populists, on the other hand, envy those high on the social ladder, identifying 'special interests' with powerful groups such as large corporations. Political scientist Tjitske Akkerman Populism typically entails "celebrating them as the people", in Stanley's words. The political scientist Paul Taggart proposed
10829-484: The rival Mouvement National Républicain (MNR, National Republican Movement). The youngest of Le Pen's daughters, Marine Le Pen , is leader of the National Rally . On 31 May 1991, Jean-Marie Le Pen married Jeanne-Marie Paschos ("Jany"), of Greek descent, in a civil cerimony. Born in 1933, Paschos was previously married to Belgian businessman Jean Garnier. The two married again in a religious marriage in 2021, in
10948-665: The same strategy is also employed by some right-wing populists. In the United States during the late 2000s, the Tea Party movement —which presented itself as a defender of the capitalist free market —argued that big business, and its allies in Congress , seeks to undermine the free market and kill competition by stifling small business. Among some 21st century right-wing populists, "the elite" are presented as being left-wing radicals committed to political correctness . The Dutch right-wing populist leader Pim Fortuyn referred to this as
11067-404: The significance of appeals to the people beyond ideological differences, and to conceptualise populism as a discursive phenomenon. Nevertheless, the ideational school's approach to populism is problematic for the amount of substantive assumptions it imposes on how populism actually works as a discursive phenomenon, such as the idea that it is of a moral register, that vindications always refer to
11186-572: The street. He was repeatedly convicted of assault and battery ( coups et blessures ). Le Pen started his political career as the head of the student union in Toulouse . He became president of the Association Corporative des étudiants en droit , an association of law students whose main occupation was to engage in street brawls against the " Cocos " ( communists ). He was excluded from this organisation in 1951. After his time in
11305-507: The strings from afar. 'It's dirty to kill your own daddy, so she didn't kill daddy directly, she did it through her henchman,' Mr. Le Pen told French radio at the time. The elder Le Pen has been a persistent problem for his daughter as she tries to smooth over the overt racism and xenophobia of the party's past. The final straw came in April when he rehashed familiar comments about the gas chambers and said France should get along with Russia to save
11424-482: The term populism is applied to political groups and individuals who make appeals to "the people" and then contrast this group against "the elite". Adopting this approach, Albertazzi and McDonnell define populism as an ideology that "pits a virtuous and homogeneous people against a set of elites and dangerous 'others' who are together depicted as depriving (or attempting to deprive) the sovereign people of their rights, values, prosperity, identity, and voice". Similarly,
11543-427: The term "the heartland" to better reflect what populists often mean in their rhetoric. According to Taggart, "the heartland" was the place "in which, in the populist imagination, a virtuous and unified population resides". Who this "heartland" is can vary between populists, even within the same country. For instance, in Britain, the centre-right Conservative Party conceived of " Middle England " as its heartland, while
11662-423: The term [ populism ] is exceptionally vague and refers in different contexts to a bewildering variety of phenomena. Margaret Canovan , 1981 The word "populism" has been contested, mistranslated and used in reference to a diverse variety of movements and beliefs. The political scientist Will Brett characterised it as "a classic example of a stretched concept, pulled out of shape by overuse and misuse", while
11781-624: The term has rarely been used as a political self-designation since the first decade of the 1900s, its meaning has broadened. As noted by the political scientist Margaret Canovan , "there has been no self-conscious international populist movement which might have attempted to control or limit the term's reference, and as a result those who have used it have been able to attach it a wide variety of meanings." In this it differs from other political terms, like " socialism " or " conservatism ", which have been widely used as self-designations by individuals who have then presented their own, internal definitions of
11900-706: The term is far too ambiguous for that". From examining how the term "populism" had been used, she proposed that seven different types of populism could be discerned. Three of these were forms of "agrarian populism"; these included farmers' radicalism, peasant movements, and intellectual agrarian socialism. The other four were forms of "political populism", representing populist dictatorship, populist democracy, reactionary populism, and politicians' populism. She noted that these were "analytical constructs" and that "real-life examples may well overlap several categories", adding that no single political movement fitted into all seven categories. In this way, Canovan conceived of populism as
12019-982: The underdog. Populists typically seek to reveal to "the people" how they are oppressed. In doing so, they do not seek to change "the people", but rather seek to preserve the latter's "way of life" as it presently exists, regarding it as a source of good. For populists, the way of life of "the people" is presented as being rooted in history and tradition and regarded as being conducive to public good. Although populist leaders often present themselves as representatives of "the people", they often come from elite strata in society; examples like Berlusconi, Fortuyn, and Haider were all well-connected to their country's political and economic elites. Populism can also be subdivided into "inclusionary" and "exclusionary" forms, which differ in their conceptions of who "the people" are. Inclusionary populism tends to define "the people" more broadly, accepting and advocating for minority and marginalised groups, while exclusionary populism defines "the people" in
12138-440: The volonté générale ( general will ) of the people. The ideational definition of populism used by Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser A common approach to defining populism is known as the ideational approach. This emphasises the notion that populism should be defined according to specific ideas which underlie it, as opposed to certain economic policies or leadership styles which populist politicians may display. In this definition,
12257-401: The vote two days beforehand and urged the party to organize an in-person Congress, as Le Pen sued the National Front again. The party decided to appeal against both of these decisions. The FN then decided, on 29 July, to count the votes on the suppression of Le Pen's Honorary Presidency, which showed that 94% of the members were in favor of this decision. However, due to the legal challenges to
12376-664: The wells and turned the Algerians against us...All this is a great diabolic scheme to dismember France. Already the Saar is gone, and soon the Italians will want Corsica ...As for those who are against us, I need only say: let them go back to Jerusalem . We'll even be glad to pay their way." After the Fifth Republic was established in 1958 under Charles de Gaulle 's presidency, Poujade and his party largely faded from view. In 1965, Poujade supported Jean Lecanuet for president. In
12495-588: The western suburbs of Paris. The home had been built by Napoleon III for his chief of staff Jean-François Mocquard . With his wife, he also owns a two-story townhouse on the Rue Hortense in Rueil-Malmaison and another house in his hometown of La Trinité-sur-Mer. In the early 1980s, Le Pen's personal security was assured by KO International Company, a subsidiary of VHP Security, a private security firm, and an alleged front organisation for SAC ,
12614-431: The word. Instead it shares similarities with terms such as " far left ", " far right ", or " extremist ", which are often used in political discourse but rarely as self-designations. In news media, the term "populism" has often been conflated with other concepts like demagoguery , and generally presented as something to be "feared and discredited". It has often been applied to movements that are considered to be outside
12733-691: Was "no coherent tradition" unifying all of them. While many left-wing parties in the early 20th century presented themselves as the vanguard of the proletariat , by the early 21st century left-wing populists were presenting themselves as the "voice of the people" more widely. On the political right, populism is often combined with nationalism, with "the people" and "the nation" becoming fairly interchangeable categories in their discourse, or combined with religion where "the people" are identified based on religion. Some political scientists have also argued that populism can be divided into left-wing inclusionary and right-wing exclusionary forms, though some argue against
12852-587: Was a seamstress and also of local ancestry. Le Pen was born on 20 June 1928 in La Trinité-sur-Mer , a small seaside village in Brittany, the son of Anne Marie Hervé and Jean Le Pen, a fisherman. He was orphaned as an adolescent ( Ward of the Nation , brought up by the state), when his father's boat La Persévérance was blown up by a mine in 1942. He was raised as a Roman Catholic and studied at
12971-532: Was defeated in the second round by Socialist Marius Masse. In 1991 Le Pen's invitation to London by Conservative MPs was militantly protested by large numbers coordinated by the Campaign Against Fascism in Europe, CAFE, which led to a surge of anti-fascist groups and activity across Europe. In 1992 and 1998 he was elected to the regional council of Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur . Le Pen ran in
13090-503: Was elected to the National Assembly as a member of Pierre Poujade 's UDCA populist party. Le Pen has often presented himself as the youngest member of the Assembly, but a young communist, André Chène, 27 years old and half a year younger, was elected in the same year. In 1957, Le Pen became the General Secretary of the National Front of Combatants, a veterans' organization, as well as the first French politician to nominate
13209-506: Was expelled from the party by his daughter Marine in 2015, after new controversial statements. Jean Louis Marie Le Pen was the only son of Jean Le Pen (1901–1942). Jean Le Pen was born in Brittany , like his ancestors, and had started work at the age of 13 on a transatlantic vessel. He was the president of L'Association des Ancients Combattants and Councilor of La Trinité-sur-Mer. Jean-Marie Le Pen's mother, Anne-Marie Hervé (1904–1965),
13328-508: Was never solved. Le Pen then failed to obtain the 500 signatures from "grand electors" ( grands électeurs , mayors, etc.) necessary to present himself in the 1981 presidential election , won by the candidate of the Socialist Party (PS), François Mitterrand . Criticizing immigration and taking advantage of the economic crisis striking France and the world since the 1973 oil crisis , Le Pen's party managed to increase its support in
13447-485: Was only wounded in the right eye and did not lose it. He lost the sight in his left eye years later, due to an illness. (Popular belief is that he wears a glass eye . ) During the 1950s, Le Pen took a close interest in the Algerian War (1954–62) and the French defence budget. Elected deputy of the French Parliament under the Poujadist banner, Le Pen voluntarily reengaged himself for two to three months in
13566-477: Was over 1500. From 2000 to 2015, about 95 papers and books including the term "populism" were catalogued each year by Web of Science . In 2016, it grew to 266; in 2017, it was 488, and in 2018, it was 615. Taggart argued that this academic interest was not consistent but appeared in "bursts" of research that reflected the political conditions of the time. Canovan noted that "if the notion of populism did not exist, no social scientist would deliberately invent it;
13685-690: Was placed “under legal protection” at the request of his family. In November 2024, Jean-Marie Le Pen was hospitalized for two weeks for medical examinations related to old age, and his family expressed concerns about his general state of health. National Assembly of France Municipal Council European Parliament Regional Council Le Pen supports bringing back the death penalty in France. Le Pen has been accused and convicted several times at home and abroad of xenophobia and antisemitism . A Paris court found in February 2005 that his verbal criticisms, such as remarks disparaging Muslims in
13804-436: Was registered as a taxpayer there. However, he was planned to be the FN's top candidate in the region for the 2010 regional elections . Le Pen again ran in the 2007 French presidential election and finished fourth. His 2007 campaign, at the age of 78 years and 9 months, makes him the oldest candidate for presidential office in French history . Le Pen has been a vocal critic of the European Reform Treaty (formally known as
13923-499: Was seen in the Greek coalition government which brought together the left-wing populist Syriza and the right-wing populist Independent Greeks in 2015. Adherents of the ideational definition have also drawn a distinction between left and right-wing populists. The latter are presented as juxtaposing "the people" against both "the elite" and an additional group who are also regarded as being separate from "the people" and whom "the elite"
14042-514: Was suspended from the party after refusing to attend his disciplinary hearing for repeating his description of the Nazi gas chambers used in concentration camps during the Holocaust , as a "detail" of World War II and speaking favorably of Nazi collaborator Marshal Philippe Pétain . He had originally been fined 183,200 euros for saying in 1987 that "I'm not saying the gas chambers didn't exist. I haven't seen them myself. I haven't particularly studied
14161-585: Was the owner of a book and stationery store. On 23 July 1953, with a group of about 20 persons, Poujade prevented inspectors of the tax board from verifying the income of another shopkeeper. This was the start of a tax protest movement by shopkeepers, first in the Lot department, then in the Aveyron department, and finally the whole south of the Massif Central . On 29 November 1953, Pierre Poujade created
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