Diachronic analysis on the left-righ paradigm in France: End or Transmutation?
Authors:   Asia-Europe Perspective Association, Kim Bok-rae 
Published: October 2019

Since the 1789 French revolution (political revolution) claiming to stand for liberty, equality, fraternity, we have commonly used the terms ‘left and right-wings’ as respectively signifying progressive/conservative forces. By later development of the Industrial revolution (economic revolution) conservative right-wing camps support ‘free-marketism,’ whereas progressive left-wing camps defend planned ‘state-interventionism.’ The former (right-wingers) socially protects traditional values (social order/hierarchy), while economically endorses free market economy. On the other hand, the later (left-wingers) struggles to obtain equal rights for all against the rigid social order of Ancien Régime based on ‘birth’ or ‘blood.’ As a convenient tool of political option, the left-right paradigm has been firmly established as a universal and omnipresent-pattern term in modern political science. Nevertheless, is this contradictory dichotomy still effective in the 21st century?
In the 1990s many politicians pretend to be ‘beyond the left-right divide,’ with the advent of the ‘Third Way’ advocated by the former British prime minister Tony Blair. Some scholars also insist that the old left-right paradigm can no longer describe the political propensities of voters or their view of the world. So, with too much simplistic/schematic left-right paradigm, we cannot exactly explain blue-color workers who support the populist far-right and right party or moderate-left voters & green party supporters who positively advocate free market economy, commonly known as right-wing values. Alain de Benoist, founder of the French New-Right (Nouvelle Droite) movement point to the gradual disappearance of traditional political ideologies in both left and right parties. The class consciousness can be the proper criterion which parts left and right. According to the recent survey, more than 70% of French people consider class consciousness or ideological antagonism as banal or hackneyed. If so, what are the main reasons for the disappearance or decline of bifurcated ideologies, and of class consciousness in late 21st century France? Does really revolutionary France want to switch her long direction from the left into the right or even far-right?
In France, homeland of the political labels left and right, nobody expects the revival or resurgence of far-right even until 1980s. In France where left-wing culture was dominant and still is, what makes the French far-right so popular in the public opinion? How has a resurgent far-right been able to challenge to the moderate right or the left? As an electoral strategy which made the French left (socialist party) act in partnership with the far-left (communist party), can the right also reconciliate with the far-right? With the election of Macron as president, is the traditional left-right paradigm over? But democracy, too, needs directions. For all the details of policy making, all the nuances of ideology, we as voters, need a straightforward way of lining up the options and making our choices. Thus, to answer to these above-mentioned questions we need to comprehend the historical contexts which have made form the left-right topography and its political identity.
This paper presents a diachronic study on the history of French left/right paradigm from the French revolution into the centric government of Macron, in order to examine the causes of the rapid growth of French far-right (Front National), and to investigate the validity of stereo-typed left-right paradigm. According to French political scientist René Rémond, the French right-wings can be divided into four categories: traditionalist, liberal, Bonapartist, and revolutionary right. On the other hand, the French left-wings can be also divided into liberal (republican), radical (communist), and anarchist. Due to the divides and conflicts caused by the French revolution in 1789, modern France could not succeed in making a ‘