ABSTRACT
This chapter explains that in an advanced democratic country like France, an extreme right political party like the National Front is caught on the horns of a dilemma. To escape this dilemma, the Front's strategy is to radically redefine the social situation, to present French society as locked in mortal combat with both external and internal enemies, and to offer natalist policies as a solution. In wartime what counts is social cohesion and morale; a crisis situation is no time for experiments or radical change, and morale is best maintained by reliance on traditional values and practices. In this conflict, which takes place not on a foreign battlefield but within France itself, women play a vitally important role. In the past French natality policies were driven by the specter of Germany, with its enormous advantage in population, threatening invasion from without. Women play an enormously important role in the symbology of the National Front.
