"Il y a une révolution en cours, une révolution des nations, en fait, c'est le grand retour des nations, et le grand retour du peuple et de la démocratie. "1
Cette déclaration étonnante de Marine Le Pen, leader du parti d'extrême droite français Front national (FN), résume de manière pointue la doctrine politique de ces partis qui ont combiné le populisme (le pure people contre les élites) et le nationalisme ( les autochtones contre autres) for their absolute success, and the extremity of this phenomenon that is gaining ground across various political systems, particularly those in Europe. The convergence of nationalism in the populist discourse established a new strain of ethno-cultural nationalism, an exclusionary conception of ‘national identity’ and an anti-European Union (EU)/anti-globalisation agenda that envisages the contemporary nation under danger and proposes to return the nation to its past glory. On that note, the adaptation of a populist nationalist nexus in the far-right political parties has rather become an inherently reactionary movement challenging the established norms of liberalism, democracy, equality and freedom.
This article takes issue with the political discourse of Marine Le Pen, the leader of the French Front National and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, leader of the Turkish Justice and Development Party (AKP). Both parties have achieved substantial political power in the recent years and have become powerful figures of far-right politics. While Le Pen’s populist and nationalist stand has shown the way to other far-right political parties across Europe, Erdogan’s discourse has also received much appreciation from Middle Eastern countries and opposition from Europe. The success of Le Pen and Erdogan has become a growing concern across European institutions and governments. Hence, both parties have individually become much analysed prominent subjects in the studies of far-right populism. This article will compare and contrast the two groups on the basis of their common characteristics of anti-elitism, nationalism/nativism and anti-multiculturalism (Kaya et al, 2020).
Le développement du populisme en Turquie sous l'AKP
During the Kemalist authoritarianism, being a legitimate member of the political community depended on accepting the cultural and political meanings of Turkishness introduced by Ataturk (Ozpek and Yasar, 2017), which thoroughly followed the Western European doctrine of secularism. The age of Kemalism saw Turkish socio-political and public clearing of any religious identity and ideology, whether this would be some clothing, such as a hijab, or reading a religious book within the public space. As Keyman writes, Kemalism formulated an aggressive French style of secularism, aimed to reduce Islam as a personal faith (2008). This exclusionary agenda against a sub-section of the population resulted in the suppression of the religious Turks, whom had been the ‘losers’ of the Kemalist regime.
Consequently, within the first years of AKP, Erdogan successfully capitalised on the anti-establishment feelings of the religious population and openly accused the longitudinal Kemalist regime of failing to represent the interests of the religious masses and for being oppressive, despotic, homogenising and top-down (Akdogan, 2004). By effectively tapping into the feelings of the religious Turks, AKP gradually gained popular vote and replaced the once Kemalist political and legal institutions, media and journalism as well as academia with a Turkish-Islamic synthesis (Ozpek and Yasar, 2017). Inevitably, the antagonistic relationship within the population was re-defined. The polarisation that once was between privileged Turks and the ordinary people, shifted into a polarisation between those that support Ottomanism, Islamic revival and conservative national values and those that reject this identity and advocate Western institutions and secularism (Yabanci, 2016). Thus, Erdogan’s AKP displays its populist rhetoric through a historical nostalgia of the Ottomans, a new identity that is created along the lines of Ottoman traditions, and a discontent and opposition towards internal ‘enemies’ that support Western ideologies, and external enemies in the West, such as the EU institutions.
Le populisme français : Le cas du Front national
For over forty years, the FN advocated a simplistic ‘master frame’ (Benford and Snow, 2000) that capitalised on anti-immigration, anti-establishment, anti-Semitism, anti-Europeanism and carried a Christian interpretation of the French society and identity. In 2011, Le Pen announced that her first task was to break the FN from its radical ideology and to de-demonise the party as a mainstream that welcomes all ideas and peoples (Symons, 2017). While Le Pen has managed to soften the party’s image by abolishing racism and anti-Semitic discourse, the party still remains exclusionary and ethnocentric. As Symons writes, they remain faithful to the values of Jean Marie Le Pen (ibid). Albeit, by demonstrating nationalist ideologies in a populist framework, Le Pen successfully shifted the empty-hearted elements of anti-Europeanism, anti-establishment and anti-immigration into powerful agendas by visualising Europe, globalisation, immigrants and the corrupt establishment as constituting significant threats to the sovereignty and identity of the French people, the homogenous and pure community inside the nation.
The most visible distinction, however, has been the replacement of racism and anti-Semitic claims to an ethnocentric worldview that rather excludes on the basis of culture, religion, tradition and lifestyle. Through the nostalgia of a mythical French history, Le Pen’s discourse reincarnates the French identity on the basis of liberty, secularism and freedom. On the opposite end of these values, she places the ‘alienated Muslim’ (Mondon, 2014) whose religion, culture and identity endangers these French values. As a result, Le Pen’s discourse manifests ‘Muslims’ living on French soil as causing a French identity split, reducing the Frenchness of the imagined national community (Seitz, 2020). The EU and globalisation on the other hand, is blamed for its technocratic nature, incompetency against terrorism, its multiculturalism and immigration laws that causes the spread of ‘Islamic Fundamentalism’.
La nostalgie historique
La nostalgie historique est devenue un élément fondamental du discours de l'AKP et du FN, car elle génère le besoin même de soigner le sentiment de perte résultant de la disparition des notions établies de nation, d'identité et de culture (Gest et al, 2017). Une construction très explicite dans le discours d'Erdogan a été la nostalgie historique de l'Empire ottoman et de son héritage islamique. L'AKP a été le premier parti dans l'histoire de la République turque à embrasser les Ottomans et même à s'identifier comme porteur de l'héritage de l'Empire ottoman :
L'AKP est Malazgird, celui qui prend la suite du sultan Alp Arslan. L'AKP est l'Empire seldjoukide. L'AKP est l'Ottoman, celui qui suit nos grands ancêtres, celui qui hérite de la foi du sultan Mehmet. L'AKP est le défenseur d'Abdul Hamid II, qui a essayé de protéger et de développer notre nation à une époque où le monde était déstabilisé et chaotique. (Erdogan, 2018)
Dans l'extrait ci-dessus, Erdogan compare l'AKP aux anciens empires turcs musulmans, les Seldjoukides, les Ottomans et leurs dirigeants. La composition de l'AKP comme la "bataille de Malazgird", la victoire des Seldjoukides contre la grande armée grecque-chrétienne byzantine, souligne l'opposition historique entre le monde musulman et le monde chrétien et positionne l'AKP comme la continuation de cette lutte pour l'Islam. Le discours d'Erdogan dessine une conception dualiste des Ottomans : tout en les décrivant comme puissants, à l'aide de Fatih Sultan Mehmet, conquérant de Constantinople, il les présente également comme les victimes d'une crise extérieure, leur effondrement étant attribué à un monde"instable" et "chaotique" world, instead of their bankruptcy and the rapid loss of political power. Thus, Erdogan compares the present AKP to a mythical history of the Ottomans, by doing so, he draws a connection between his struggles in upholding the nation and the people against the enemies, to the similar struggles and enemies of the Ottoman Sultans.
Le discours de Le Pen embrasse également la puissance de l'Empire français, en comparaison avec les faiblesses de la France contemporaine :
Quand les Français ont oublié leur propre valeur, il faut voir la vitalité du cinéma québécois, de la littérature francophone en Afrique. Je crois que la France peut à nouveau devenir plus grande. (Le Pen, 2016)
L'extrait ci-dessus constitue le discours très traditionnel des partis populistes nationaux, le passé mythique, le présent problématique et un futur utopique de la nation. Le Pen encadre l'Empire français comme puissant, notamment sous l'aspect de la diffusion de la langue française dans les colonies. La France contemporaine, cependant, est présentée comme oubliant son identité et son histoire. Cette construction de l'Empire français comme glorieux, et de la France contemporaine comme misérable, place l'Empire français et la France comme membre de l'UE dans des catégories opposées et, ce faisant, elle oppose également le Français de souche qui souhaite rendre à la nation sa puissance passée, à "l'autre" qui s'associe à l'identité européenne sur l'identité nationale française.
Le cas de l'identité
La construction d'une identité nationale excluante s'appuie sur des valeurs et des attributs importants mis en évidence par la nostalgie historique de la nation. Le cadre de l'identité turque défini par Erdogan englobe la croyance islamique de l'Empire ottoman comme l'appartenance nationale déterminante de la Turquie contemporaine :
Vous ne pourrez pas diviser notre pays, vous ne pourrez pas détruire notre État, vous ne pourrez pas faire taire notre azan, parce que nous sommes la Turquie nous nous sommes le peuple turc, nous nous sommes musulmans. (Erdogan, 2018)
L'extrait ci-dessus est un exemple impeccable de l'antagonisme entre le peuple turc et l'élite, et la couche étendue que le nationalisme ajoute à cet antagonisme, le peuple turc en tant que musulman contre les autres. L'utilisation binaire par Erdogan des pronoms " nous " contre " vous " pronouns places two entities in oppositional categories vis-à-vis one another (Aydin-Duzgit, 2016). He firstly constructs Turkey under attack by an external enemy that is " divise " le " pays ", cette affirmation place la Turquie dans une opposition hostile à l'Europe et reconnaît la différenciation idéologique de la Turquie par rapport à l'Occident. Deuxièmement, l'identité nationale est définie sur un axe haut-bas, comme dans les études sur le populisme, le "peuple turc" est opposé à un "devlet" (État) corrompu. Troisièmement, l'identité du "peuple turc" est expliquée par le nativisme et le nationalisme, et la turcité devient une identité d'exclusion qui compose l'identification "musulmane".
La construction de l'identité dans le discours de Le Pen met également l'accent sur les valeurs françaises qui ont été forgées à travers le passé mythique de la nation :
Nous , Français, sommes profondément attachés à notre notre laïcité, à notre notre souveraineté, à notre notre indépendance notre , à nos valeurs, notre à notre art de vivre. (Le Pen, 2015)
Dans l'extrait ci-dessus, Le Pen propose les caractéristiques de l'identité nationale française. L'utilisation de " nous " et "nous" et "notre" génère le discours populiste typique, les caractéristiques attribuées à ce pronom, cependant, propose la convergence du nationalisme dans le discours populiste. Le Pen construit " nous " et "nous" as the in-group of the population, who constitutes the fundamental values of Frenchness defined by secularism, cultural values and a certain way of living. As the French psychologist Marc Lipiansky writes, a national character is not simply a sum of individual characters, but it is a general way of feeling, thinking and wanting (1991). Hence, Le Pen’s construction of the exclusionary French identity is very vague and narrow, it demands one to fully integrate themselves into the French social and cultural life, replacing all ethnic and cultural authenticity. This initiates that those who perceive a different lifestyle, clothing, food and faith are inherently antagonistic to the French national identity. The French people are also manifested as having an attachment to la souveraineté et et à l'indépendance, ce qui construit la relation conflictuelle entre le peuple français et l'establishment qui suit les règlements de l'UE, ainsi que l'UE qui a longtemps été accusée de réduire le pouvoir national.
This article aimed to shed light on la façon the far-right populist leaders have framed and created historical nostalgia and an exclusionary national identity through the convergence of nationalism in their populist discourses. This article found that the narrative of the pure ‘people’ as defined in populism, became exceptionally stronger when the leaders, Le Pen and Erdogan combined nationalism into their discourse, constructing ‘the people’ as both an opposition to the establishment and the elite, but also opposing the ‘people’ as a national community against the ethnoculturally and ideologically ‘other’. The construction of a historical nostalgia in the discourse of Le Pen and Erdogan focuses on a mythical conceptualisation of the past Ottoman and French Empires, solely focusing on the identity and values these Empires possessed. By doing so, this article showed that both parties reincarnate a national identity that carries the heritage of the mythical past, which acts as a shield to protect the nation against growing multiculturalist identities and ideologies of the global economy. On that note, the AKP and FN construct a glorious past of the nation, a crisis-driven present which allows them to detect and frame imaginary enemies of the nation, and an imaginary future of the national community.
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