ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the relatively brief political history of the National Front (NF), the lack of serious long-term studies of the extreme right electorate in France, and the problems involved in the very definition of extreme right. The voters were "pulled" or attracted to parties because of their stand on crucial issues of the day. National Front voters are much more hostile to immigrants than those who vote for parties of the left and right. In 1988, Nonna Mayer and Pascal Perrineau found that 75 percent of those who voted for Le Pen thought that there were too many immigrants in France, compared to 35 percent for the French population as a whole. Unlike the Poujadists, who drew their support from mainly rural areas of France and from small-town businesspeople, artisans, and farmers, the Front draws support from across France and from across all sociological categories.
