The New Horizons of French Extreme Right. Fragmented but Dynamic and Better Socially Embedded

The French far right is historically characterized by its fragmentation into small groups. While the National Front/National Rally under the Le Pen family has been able to offer a unified façade for the French far right, its “normalisation” process has, in return, left room for more radical groups to position themselves as dissidents to the right of the party. This fragmentation has re-emerged in 2021 with the presidential campaign of Éric Zemmour, competing with Marine Le Pen by talking both to the most radical groups and to the more mainstream bourgeoisie. In this chapter we explore the French extreme-right landscape, look at those minor parties that remain politically active, those that have been banned by the authorities since 2017, and investigate the growing number of cases in which activists opt for violence, terrorism, or the dream of a coup.