Berkley Center

Although the French have a multiparty system, it seems to mimic the same pattern as its American counterpart. Elections are usually between the primary center-right and center-left parties. While other parties certainly have their impact, the second round of presidential and congressional elections seem to come down to the two main contemporary parties: the Socialist Party and the Union for a Popular Movement.

Unfortunately, France’s political landscape is in a tumultuous state. The two traditional parties run on similar platforms, promising to create jobs and regenerate economic prosperity. The means to these ends are of course points of contention. Ironically, the traditional political class has presided over lengthy periods of economic malaise, high unemployment, and have continued to tax the French at the highest rate out of any member country in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Currently, socialist President François Hollande carries just 23 percent of support. A president who was supposed to be transformational, he continues to be lambasted by his own electorate for not rectifying the very issues on which he based his political campaign. Unfortunately for Hollande, he is another iteration of a complicated pattern, and not necessarily the deviation from the stagnant, political norm.

It’s clear that the French, like Americans, want real substantive change. However, how radical are the French willing to be to bring this change about?

According to recent polls, the answer to this political malaise might be Marine Le Pen, the current president of the Front National (FN). The FN is France’s leading extreme-right party. The party boasts slogans such as "France for the French" and "France First." It’s a party which seeks to preserve French national identity, decrease immigration rates, and, more importantly, regain French national sovereignty from the European Union. In fact, a major argument of the FN’s platform is that the European Union has continuously chipped away the sovereignty of European nations, fueling domestic democratic deficits, as well as political and economic disenchantment.

Le Pen has moderated the FN party’s image and rendered it more appealing to voters. Le Pen’s father, the former president of the party, damaged the party's public image as a result of anti-Semitic and racially charged rhetoric. But since his daughter took the reins, recent polls suggest that one in four French voters will vote for the FN in the upcoming European election. What’s ironic is that a party of eurosceptics might finally infiltrate the arena in which the most important of European Union politics takes place. The traditional parties of the right and of the left are cautious; Le Pen has a message, and it is resonating with and mobilizing important parts of the electorate.

Le Pen’s rise in popularity stems from increasing disenchantment with further political and economic integration in the European Union. To what extent can we bridge distinct cultures, nations, and peoples under a common political structure without undercutting a country’s ability to democratically self-steer?

At the same time, economic and political malaise forces cultures, nations, and people to self-reflect, to try and change what is not working. Unfortunately, self-reflection does not always connote forward-looking change. Often, it forces retreat in the institutional shell of our distinct differences that separates us from the "other." And the left views Le Pen’s growth as the politicization of the "other": those who have failed to integrate with French culture; those who France lets enter its borders despite sky-high unemployment; those who potentially deviate French culture from its normal trajectory; and more importantly, those who chip away at France’s ability to democratically lead its people.

In the end, maybe Le Pen’s surging popularity represents something about the sustainability and the limits of the European project. Populism is gaining speed across Europe. Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta warns pro-European voters in the New York Times that "We have [a] big risk to have the most ‘anti-European’ European Parliament ever."

That being said, the European project has its limits unless all are on board. At this point it seems like quite the opposite. When political instability, economic malaise, and disenchantment supplant prosperity, perhaps people want to revert back to a more familiar time, in contrast to one that proposes more ambivalence, anxiety, and potential insecurity.