Why do people support the Front National?
by Jamie Bartlett
As part of our series exploring the online support for right-wing populist parties in Europe, we surveyed supporters of the Front National. Over 2,000 Facebook fans of the FN responded to our survey, undertaken in August last year, and the results will be out shortly.
In one question we asked why they decided to support the party ('Qu'est-ce qui a motivé votre adhésion à Front National?'). We entered the approximately 1,000 answers to this question into a Word Cloud, to provide a graphic illustration of their language and concerns.
A word of warning: do not read too much into this, because obviously the context is key - which is removed when given as a cluster of single words. However, a couple of interesting points are clear. First, immigration is by far and away the most commonly used word - with 100 mentions. Marine Le Pen (46 mentions) is far more important, it seems, than her father Jean-Marie. Islam is not the driving force behind the FN supporters - nor is the economy. Ideas, insecurity, and change matter more.
We asked the same question of each of the 13 right-wing populist parties we surveyed - a total of 13,000 responses. Next week, we'll publish the results from English Defence League.