Going Local, Going Mainstream? Ethnographic Study of Two French Cities Governed by the Rassemblement National
Résumé
© 2024 Cambridge University Press. All rights reserved.The government actions of populist radical right (PRR) parties have predominantly been scrutinized at the national level, leaving a critical aspect - their territorial foothold - largely unexplored. Through a comparative ethnographic study of two medium-sized French towns governed by the Rassemblement National since 2014, this article delves into how seizing municipal power has influenced the party s efforts towards mainstreaming. We examine the party s strategy, aimed at institutionalization, which relies on a blend of rhetoric emphasizing proximity, pragmatism, and non-partisan administration while preserving fundamental ideological elements of the radical right. This amalgamation of mainstreaming and radicalism, adaptive to different contexts and audiences, is termed adaptable ideology . Our study makes significant contributions to two pivotal aspects of the literature: understanding the mainstreaming trajectory of PRR parties and exploring the recent, localist turn in the study of this political realm.