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Comment by briandear | Hacker News Reader

I don't understand why Le Pen is being called "right" or "ultra right." Even a cursory review of her policy proposals -- specifically economic policy shows her closer to Melanchon than the free market "right" orientation of Fillon's proposals.

She's national socialist more than anything -- ultra right socially, ultra left economically. I consider myself "on the right" -- but Le Pen is the worst of both worlds; the totalitarian racist zeal of Hitler with the industrial protectionism fervor of the worst socialist. By the way, when I say socialist, I don't mean the Democratic Socialism common in Europe -- I am referring to the statist socialism of the Soviet era.

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"Right wing" isn't an exclusively economic designation, and hardline nationalism, suspicion of foreigners and progressives and determination to preserve the status quo (or restore a possibly imaginary status quo ante) have been the defining characteristics of right wing thought since it originated in Revolution-era France reflecting where the parties loyal to the monarch and the aristocracy sat (Front Nationale even has a tenuous ancestral link to 19th century political movements to restore the monarchy).

If anything, the free market "right" is the anomaly; classical liberal economics ended up being designated as "right wing" because it built an ideological case against any meddling with status quo wealth distributions rather than because the original "right" and many conservative movements since haven't been as strongly protectionist as anything on the Left.

Bingo. These days one have to add a social/economic classification to the traditional left/right split.

Many of the "leftist" parties that rose in Europe after WW2 may well be see as on the rightish side in terms of economics. This if one read right as being about preserving the status quo.

Similarly when one hear about economic liberalization it can't be read in similar terms as being socially liberal (leftist). Because being liberal economically means turning a blind eye towards abuses of workers and environment in the chase of that almighty profit.

All in all politics have become a massive game of words, and their definition.

You're absolutely right in your analysis : she is ultra right socially, hence why everyone call her ultra right, but she leans left economically. France's way of describing politicians is more focused on the social perspective than the economical one (otherwise, Macron would be on the right I think)

Right, she is a Gaullist, her ideology is French self-sufficiency above all else, just as de Gaulle's was. It's pure knee-jerk to equate nationalism with the far right, when it is actually orthogonal to the left-right axis.

But De Gaulle was not Vichynist

Like national socialism, you cannot label it "left", for it's mostly appearances and ways to get votes than real convictions and engagement.

Exactly. By the way, national socialism is exactly what lepen is doing : backing defense of the weak ones on nationalist views. I've had many discussions with people lately who were arguing that yes, it's nationalism, but it's also leading the social fight (I'm french). Each time, they were mind blown when I replied : "Yep, and that's called national-socialism". For some reason, they don't see the similarities by themselves. I guess we failed to explain clearly what nazism was, and now people think it's only about racism and don't detect it when it raises again.

That's the french political spectrum, it's historical. To be honest very few people know what she would actually do if she got elected, even amongst her militants. She's a populist first and foremost.

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