Immigration, Insecurity, and the French Far Right

Abstract

Explores why, in a time of increasing insecurity & fear of crime, immigration, generally associated with crime in French public opinion, has faded as a hot issue in national debate. Although an adequate explanation may be complex & have multiple causes, the decline may be related to the internal struggles within the extreme Right party, the Front National (FN) that led to the formation of a splinter party in Jan 1999. Both the FN led by the charismatic & controversial Le Pen & the new party, the Mouvement National Republican (MNR) led by Bruno Megret, have lost ground, leading to the eclipse of their party platforms. The rise of FN prior to its internal disintegration is traced & shown to be parallel to the 1984 to 1998 rise in national debate concerning immigration & its subsequent marginalization. L. A. Hoffman