Climate change: bad news for populism? How the Rassemblement National used COVID-19 to promote its environmental agenda

de Nadal, L. (2022) Climate change: bad news for populism? How the Rassemblement National used COVID-19 to promote its environmental agenda. Nationalities Papers, (doi: 10.1017/nps.2022.104) (Early Online Publication)

Abstract

This article uses the French Rassemblement National (RN) as a case study to examine how the populist radical right (PRR) prepares for a world after COVID-19 dominated by climate change concerns. Research suggests that certain measures introduced to contain the virus – such as the establishment of strict border and travel restrictions – may legitimize the PRR’s protectionist and anti-immigration agendas, yet few have examined whether or how PRR parties have used COVID-19 to promote their environmental agenda. If anything, the expectation has been that the pandemic would hurt the PRR precisely because its effects, unlike climate change, cannot be dismissed as a “hoax.” This view overlooks not only the “environmental turn” recently taken by several PRR parties but also the possibility that public awareness of the causal link between climate change and COVID-19 may work to their advantage. The analysis presented in this article highlights this possibility, showing that the RN used COVID-19 not only to capitalize on anti-immigrant sentiment but also to bolster its self-image as a champion of environmental protection.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Early Online Publication
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: de Nadal Alsina, Dr Lluis
• Authors: de Nadal, L.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences > Sociology Anthropology and Applied Social Sciences
• Journal Name: Nationalities Papers
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• ISSN: 0090-5992
• ISSN (Online): 1465-3923
• Published Online: 27 December 2022
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2022 The Author
• First Published: First published in Nationalities Papers 2022
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons License