ABSTRACT
Since 2012, women have begun to vote for National Rally (Rassemblement National, or RN) in startling numbers. Since the Islamophobic and anti-immigration platform has not changed dramatically, this newfound appeal for women voters seems linked to Marine Le Pen’s increasing embrace of policies for women. This has included, to the outrage of many liberal feminists, lacing throughout her campaign a Far-Right Newspeak that infuses the traditional language of liberalism with right-wing values and meaning. Le Pen has reappropriated the vocabulary of rights, freedom, and equality for women and claimed a restoration, through National Rally, of a much older French tradition of women’s liberation. Feminists have rejected her use of liberal language as an opportunist ruse to seduce women into the more extremist immigration policies of RN, while Le Pen has defended her alternate interpretation as the more legitimate interpretation of these concepts. In reconceptualizing what defense of women’s rights means for the far right, Le Pen is availing herself of a discourse of liberté and egalité with deep historical roots in the French Republic. Her ability to capitalize on this liberal and republican language to gain women voters while simultaneously seeking illiberal and antirepublican goals merits our consideration as we increasingly see right-wing women politicians finding support from female voters across Europe and the US.
