© Political Studies Association, 2003. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA ‘Protest’ and Fail to Survive: Le Pen and the Great Moving Right Show Mark Neocleous Brunel University Nick Startin UWE, Bristol This article challenges the widespread belief that the recent success of Jean-Marie Le Pen and the Front National is due to a ‘protest vote’ on the part of the French electorate, a vote which thus lacks any ‘core identity’ and is therefore unsustainable in the long term. Through a geographical and sociological breakdown of the 2002 presidential and legislative elections the article first shows the extent to which support for Le Pen is clearly not a ‘protest’ but has a clear and recognisable base. Following this, the article aims to situate the notion of the ‘protest vote’ in the wider context of the continued ‘moving right show’ in contemporary social democracy. The success of Front National (FN) candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen in the first round of the 2002 presidential election sent shock waves through the political establish- ment in France and elsewhere. His 16.86 per cent share of the vote, narrowly defeating the Parti Socialist (PS) prime minister Lionel Jospin’s 16.18 per cent score, placed him against all predictions in a second round run-off with his arch rival Jacques Chirac. Le Pen was of course unable to build significantly on his score in the second round, increasing his percentage share of the vote to just 17.85 per cent as France’s voters rallied around an anti-FN consensus and elected Chirac with a massive 82.15 per cent of the vote. But in reality this cross-party show of ballot box unity against the FN did not detract from Le Pen’s real victory: his mere pres- ence in the second round. This development was particularly unexpected, for many commentators had pre- dicted the demise of the FN following the bitter internal power struggle in 1998 between Le Pen and Bruno Mégret, culminating in the latter forming a breakaway party, the Mouvement National (MN), and the two adversaries presenting opposing lists at the 1999 European elections. 1 Furthermore, earlier in 2002 Le Pen had struggled to obtain the required 500 signatures of elected national, regional and local representatives necessary to proceed into the presidential race, only manag- ing to do so at the very last hurdle. 2 His relatively late entrance into the contest contributed to his low early poll ratings which in themselves reinforced the sur- prise of the result. Despite being France’s third largest party in terms of votes cast, the FN’s electoral achievements are still regularly labelled a ‘protest vote’. Such an interpretation, which stems from French journalistic sources and continues to be promoted by POLITICS: 2003 VOL 23(3), 145–155