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Populism as a theme is omnipresent in the academic literature. Debates in the field include the definition of populism, the populist voter, and the link between populism and democracy. Yet, few studies tackle the question of how populist parties present themselves. Focusing on the typical populist radical right-wing party, the Front National (FN), I examine which of the features of right-wing populism such as peoples' centrism, anti-elitism, charismatic leadership, or nationalism, to name a few, are dominant in the official communications and in sympathizers' discourse. I do this based on an analysis of all Facebook posts by this party and comments by supporters for the past 9 years. In terms of populist features, I find that the cult of personality is the defining feature that the FN has built around her leader; it is also this feature that distinguishes the FN from the mainstream parties in France. In fact, the FN couples the personality cult around Marine Le Pen with nationalism. When it comes to other populist themes such as peoples' centrism or anti-Europeanism, these topics are not at the center of FN communications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Front national has experienced such an increase in popularity under the leadership since 2011 of Marine Le Pen that some commentators have suggested the FN is now politically mainstream and question the validity of continuing to represent the party as ideologically extreme. This paper argues that although the party remains ideologically extreme, this does not prevent it from forming part of the political mainstream because it is perfectly concomitant with some form of French republicanism, specifically the national republicanism which has become hegemonic in recent decades. To more effectively combat the FN one must both recognise this and at the same time articulate an alternative, much more inclusivist vision of the French Republic, one leaving no space for the vision of the Republic articulated by the FN. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article investigates whether the image-building of Marine Le Pen as the leader of the Front National has helped to reinforce the idea of the renewal of her party. In particular, it focuses on Le Pen's peopolisation in order to understand whether her presentation as a family woman facing the everyday problems of the common people has played a role in the so-called process of dédiabolisation. The study is based on the analysis of Le Pen's coverage in the popular press. The results show that there is a clear consistency between Le Pen's image of a leader in the process of renewing her party and press coverage that focused on her being a modern woman and a daughter in the process of distancing herself from her father. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extensive analyses of Marine Le Pen's media interventions as leader of the French Front National have revealed mostly rhetorical differences from her father's discourse. In particular, despite Marine Le Pen's professed openness toward women and their policy concerns, and despite her professed intention to transform the FN into party suitable for government, there has been little progress in these directions. However, the FN's visual discourse has been all but ignored by the scholarly analysis, despite the fact that campaign visuals encode significant social and political information. This paper finds that the FN candidates' visual presentation has undergone major transformations from the 2007 to the 2012 legislative elections. Specifically FN candidates in 2012 are more likely to visually portray themselves like mainstream party candidates. Compared to the 2007 elections, women candidates, in particular, were more likely to visually promote their personal qualities in 2012, in some respects more than 2012 men candidates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We look to forecast the number of seats the Front National (FN) will win in the 2017 legislative election. We use the most recent subnational ballot, the 2015 regional election, to estimate support for the party, and model reallocation of first-round legislative votes in the second round by applying the pattern seen between the 2011 cantonal and 2012 legislative elections. Using different levels of turnout and four different scenarios of Left-bloc coalition arrangements, both of which strongly influence how the FN performs in run-off ballots, we estimate that a likely, but conservative, scenario would result in 29 FN seats, if a similar pattern to 2011-2012 obtains. This number of seats would allow the FN to form a Parliamentary group in the National Assembly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]