France and the Era of Maximum Polarization

French elections have often been marked by sharp polarization, defining moments, and major political transformations. The next presidential election, scheduled for next year, is likely to be one of them. Early signs of the contest have already emerged with the French employers’ organization holding a major conference attended by around 6,000 people, where the seven leading presidential contenders presented their political, economic, and cultural platforms.

The polarization surrounding this election is, in reality, the culmination of a new pattern of political confrontation that has persisted for more than two decades between the far right, represented by the National Rally, and the far left, represented by La France Insoumise.

France has experienced sharp divisions between the right and the left before. It witnessed a particularly decisive moment when this polarization produced the first transfer of power in the history of the Fifth Republic, established by General Charles de Gaulle in 1958. In 1981, left-wing candidate François Mitterrand defeated right-wing President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, marking the culmination of the country’s long-standing right-left divide in a transfer of power toward the left.

At the time, the left embraced traditional socialist ideas, including the nationalization of major companies and the consolidation of the education system. Yet only months after taking office, Mitterrand began retreating from some of these policies.

Political mobilization and polarization are hardly unfamiliar phenomena in France. Unlike other European countries that developed a form of relatively “soft polarization” after World War II—such as Germany, Britain, and the Scandinavian countries—France retained a powerful revolutionary and communist left. In many of those other countries, the left was predominantly social democratic, while the right was liberal democratic or Christian democratic. Revolutionary and communist forces were either largely absent or remained politically marginal.

France, by contrast, had a strong communist presence, while the Socialist Party ultimately participated in governing the country following the 1981 elections.

The transfer of power to the left represented a major challenge to the French political system. Mitterrand came to power campaigning on slogans of breaking with the capitalist system and advancing alternatives to capitalist values. His disagreement was therefore not merely with a particular government program or political orientation, but with the underlying logic of the existing system itself.

Yet, only months after he assumed office, there was no fundamental break with capitalism. Instead, Mitterrand ultimately broke with much of the socialist program he had promoted. The capitalist system did not collapse; it survived, evolved, and renewed some of its foundations.

From that point onward, competition between the left and the right in France and elsewhere in Europe increasingly became a contest over political and economic details, the renewal of governing elites, and the introduction of new political figures, rather than a struggle over fundamentally different political systems or radically opposing policies.

A broad segment of the public consequently came to feel that its circumstances did not change substantially regardless of whether the right or the left was in power—captured by the familiar Arab saying that, essentially, one ends up with the same result under a different name.

The Cultural Dimension of Polarization

The situation began to change when cultural issues entered the arena of political polarization in Europe. The driving forces included immigration, national identity, Islam, the integration of second-generation immigrants, and related questions.

Two political currents increasingly came to compete over these issues: the National Rally on the far right and La France Insoumise on the far left.

The National Rally has drawn a significant part of its electoral support from voters opposed to immigration and skeptical about the ability of French citizens of Arab origin to fully embrace French secularism, or laïcité, and to become “full” citizens on an equal footing with what the party and its supporters regard as “native” white French citizens.

The party has also advocated a policy of “zero immigration” and the deportation of undocumented migrants.

La France Insoumise, meanwhile, has drawn substantial support from the children and grandchildren of immigrants who acquired French citizenship and became citizens of the country in which they or their families settled.

Its leader, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, has repeatedly made a revealing argument, saying that when he was young, French people of immigrant origin accounted for approximately 1 percent of the population, whereas today they represent between 1 and 4 percent.

He has also told these citizens:

“Your parents and grandparents built France. Never accept that your rights should be fewer than those of other French people.”

His party has sought to articulate the idea of what might be called a “new France”—one in which citizens enjoy equal rights and responsibilities regardless of their ethnic origins.

Beyond Conventional Policy Disputes

There are, of course, other issues dividing the candidates in the French presidential election: public debt and fiscal policy, the retirement age, industrial policy, wages, and other economic questions.

These represent legitimate and healthy differences of opinion that are characteristic of Western democracies.

Yet the deeper and more consequential polarization is likely to remain centered on two competing visions of immigration, migrants, and national identity, as well as on differing conceptions of what the new France should look like and how it should approach Islam and Israel.

These issues suggest that France has effectively entered an era of a “second great polarization” in less than half a century.

The crucial difference this time is that the outcome of the next presidential election may not be another shift toward the left, as occurred in 1981. Instead, the possibility of a victory by the far right has become increasingly conceivable.

Such an outcome would confront Europe’s post-World War II legal and political framework with a new and potentially more difficult challenge than the arrival of the left in power in 1981.

The significance of the coming French election therefore extends well beyond the competition between individual candidates or political parties. It may represent a broader test of the political model that has governed France for decades, as well as of the assumptions underpinning Europe’s postwar political order.

The central question is no longer simply whether the left or the right will govern France. It is whether the country is entering a new phase in which cultural identity, immigration, religion, and competing definitions of citizenship will become the principal fault lines shaping French politics for years to come.