Populism and Cultural Globalisation: A Comparative Study of the Effects of Cultural Globalisation on Populisms in France

Abstrakt

This thesis was motivated by the desire to address a series of gaps that were found in the literature on populism. The main gap refers to the lack of knowledge that regards the positions of left-wing populism in relation to cultural globalisation.
My research explores the relationship between cultural globalisation – especially issues of immigration and identity – and the populist actors – le Front National and la France Insoumise – in France.
I have carried out a qualitative content analysis of official documents of campaign of the two populist parties as well as archives from the respective blogs of their leaders – Marine Le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon – during a part of the presidential campaign in 2017.
The results of my analysis have shown that right-wing and left-wing populism are at loggerheads with regard to cultural issues. They indeed position themselves on the cleavage ethnonationalism vs. cosmopolitanism. Le Front National advocates for a return to the local via an ethno-identity positioning while la France Insoumise wants to get rid of the cultural barriers and to open to the global by putting forward a humanistic perspective on French society and the world.