Dorit Geva

I have been pursuing interview-based and ethnographic research since March 2013 on the Front National (FN), the French radical ring wing party led by Marine Le Pen. Marine Le Pen’s party leadership of the FN has had a ripple effect across French party politics, and she is succeeding in expanding the party’s appeal beyond its traditional base. I am examining how her familial charisma, and her position as a “modern woman” are treated by new and old FN supporters as an antidote to the opaque, shadowy practices of the EU and Paris neoliberal elites. The project is comparing distinct class groups to identify the relationship between class, gender, and race in explaining disenchantement with mainstream politics, and political re-enchantment through the populist radical right.