ABSTRACT
Among the 96 departments that make up metropolitan France, the far right has performed especially well in the Var. In this department of the south its share of the vote has been at least twice the national average since 1984. Growing to 5,000 members during the 1990s, the Var section of the Front National (FN) became the largest departmental section of any party in the country (Var-Matin République, 26 December 1999). In 1995 the prefecture for this department elected as its mayor a candidate from Le Pen’s party. With 170,000 inhabitants, Toulon thereby became the biggest city in France – and perhaps any post-war European democracy – with a municipal council under the far right.
