Abstract
The 2016–2017 elections in the United States and Europe left many pundits talking about the possible “Trump effect” on elections in European states. Here, I argue that themes generic to right-wing movements in France have instead made their way to the United States. I discuss briefly the influence of the nationalist movement Action Française on the National Front party, and more recently on Steve Bannon, erstwhile advisor to Donald Trump. I draw on fieldwork in France and on social media to describe Les Patriotes, a party that broke away from the National Front in 2017. After discussing the two parties’ shifting messages on immigration and the European Union, the chapter concludes with a discussion on the importance of understanding French nationalist movements when interpreting similar movements in the United States.
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Acknowledgments
I thank Dorianne Guernsey for her memories of France in the 1930s until her evacuation to the United States through Spain and Portugal in June, 1940. Also, Catherine Bertrand, Jean Masson, Rèjane Ménégaux, and Amalia Vittini of Montbéliard are to be thanked for their help in the past, as well as Paulina Ochoa Espejo, Thomas Donahue, Patricia Heck, and Andreas Westerwinter for their help in the present.
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Donahue, K.C. (2019). In the Camp of the Saints: Right-Wing Populism in Twenty-First-Century France. In: Donahue, K., Heck, P. (eds) Cycles of Hatred and Rage. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14416-6_6
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