ABSTRACT
The 2002 legislative and presidential elections bore testimony to the consolidation of the position of the extreme right in the French political system as a strong mobilizing force, despite hasty predictions of decline in 1999 subsequent to the split by the Mouvement National Républicain (MNR) from the Front National (FN). Beyond the specific circumstances of the elections which allowed Jean-Marie Le Pen to progress to the second round but which saw a relative drop for FN and MNR candidates in the subsequent legislative ballots, the extreme right vote has a number of specific characteristics that raise it above the status of a simple protest vote, as support for Le Pen and his party has so often been characterized. In the subsequent 2004 parliamentary and regional elections, the party performed equally strongly relative to its 2002 legislative score, unlike its moderate right counterparts, which experienced major defeats at the hands of the left in both.
