Inequality, Identity and the People: New Patterns of Right-Wing Competition and Sarkozy's ‘Winning Formula' in the 2007 French Presidential Election

Building on the analysis of party communication in the 2007 presidential campaign in France, this paper explores two correlated aspects of change in patterns of partisan competition in the right pole of French politics. Looking at the strategic responses by the UMP to the rise of the FN in 2002, we examine first the process of profound ideological revision under Sarkozy's leadership. The emphasis is on the reformulation of two archaeological repertoires of the French conservative New Right –namely anti-egalitarianism and cultural differentialism– and how this ‘winning formula' was successfully articulated with strong populist and anti-establishment appeals. In the second section, this distinctive trajectory is contrasted with the transformation and adaptation of the FN to the new party system configuration that emerged from Le Pen's Pyrrhic victory of 2002. The focus is on the de-radicalisation of the party's programmatic appeal in 2007 and a significant re-interpretation of its traditional ethnicised mythology of national identity. Implications for the characterisation of the radical Right phenomenon in France are discussed in the conclusion