Marine Le Pen 2017, Au nom du peuple. (In the name of the people). Flickr/Richard Grandmorin. Some rights reserved. Rarely in French political history had there been such a confluence of favourable conditions for the election of an extremist and populist candidate in a presidential race: a lingering EU migrant crisis, the soaring recurrence of actual and prevented terror attacks throughout the country, increasing segments of French society feeling disenfranchised, a growing voters' fatigue with worn-out manifestos by self-seeking traditional parties, and a stagnating national economy, all seemed essential ingredients for a majority vote in favour of Marine Le Pen on May 7, 2017.
Yet, with slightly less than 34% of the ballots in the decisive round, the level of appeal for the far-right’s credo has demonstrated that such ingredients were no longer as potent in contemporary politics as they might have been in the past. Not only this, but the near-unanimous predictions by French political commentators about the likely election of Marine Le Pen, or one of her National Front successors, in the next presidential race in 2022, also appear to be ill-founded.
There are at least five reasons for this.
