When opposites attract? : the relationship between foreign policy and the migration-terrorism nexus in the French radical right and radical left discourse

Abstract

Forms of political violence such as terrorism, as well as, migration flows have traditionally been interpreted and discussed in very different ways by the right wing and left wing parties. Yet, during the 2017 presidential campaign, Marine le Pen, leader for the National Front (FN) and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of France Unbowed (FI), despite obvious differences in terms of conceptualisation of justice and legitimation of violence, presented an agenda on the two phenomena revealing some critical overlapping points. The literature, however, does not yet provide a clear framework to understand party competition in relation to the terrorism-migration nexus here understood and analysed in relation to EU integration and national foreign policy. Hence, by building on studies on the cultural dimension of political competition, this paper analyses the positioning of the two parties over the four key issues, namely EU integration, foreign policy, migration and terrorism. Our study reveals and discusses what kind of nexus these two parties recognise and elaborate and how the party competition dynamics has been altered accordingly. In particular, we show that an ‘U-Curve’ is visible also in relation of an alleged migrationterrorism nexus revealing an increased convergence of opposing radical parties.