ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses four of the candidates labelled ‘peripheral’ by French commentators: Dominique Voynet, Jean-Marie Le Pen, Philippe de Villiers and Jacques Cheminade. The changes or reforms these candidates envisaged, regardless of their content, had much to do with modifying not only detailed or specific aspects of the policy spectrum, but the very ‘form’ of politics itself. The chapter presents each of the candidates, his or her aims in running for the presidency, and highlights the distinctiveness of each one’s campaign. It then examines how these candidates and their agendas benefited or suffered from the opportunities and constraints provided by the presidential framework. What the 1995 presidential election highlights is that accompanying the dealignment from the mainstream parties has been a re-alignment in favour of the Front National (FN). If the FN has become the party of the disaffected then an element of social class obviously enters the analysis.
