Regional elections, 1st round, 1992: Front National 13.9% Parliamentary elections, 1st round, 1997: FN 14.9% Parliamentary elections, 1st round, 2002: FN 11.3% Regional elections, 1st round, 2004: FN 14.7% Parliamentary elections, 1st round, 2007: FN 4.3% Regional elections, 1st round, 2010: FN 11.4%
You'll note the only outliers: the 2007 "legislatives" in the wake of Sarkozy's victory at the Presidency. This is when Sarko was widely credited for having siphoned off the FN electorate and the FN's themes of "Immigration & National Identity": he then created the namesake Ministry and appointed the infamous Hortefeux at it.
Bottom line? The FN is now back to its historical average, and rather to the bottom part of it, it seems. Europeans think a hundred miles is a long way. Americans think a hundred years is a long time.
Regional elections (one round), 1992: FN 3,371,624 Parliamentary elections, 1st round, 1993: FN 3,152,543 Parliamentary elections, 1st round, 1997: FN 3,800,785 Regional elections (one round), 1998: FN 3,271,686 Parliamentary elections, 1st round, 2002: FN 2,862,960, splitters MNR 276,376, together 3,139,336 Regional elections, 1st round, 2004: FN 3,564,059, MNR 349,181, together 3,913,240 Parliamentary elections, 1st round, 2007: FN 1,116,136 Regional elections, 1st round, 2010: FN 2,223,760
That's far off the historical levels for 2010, even if twice the level of the 2007 outlier.
As a separate series: Presidential elections, 1st round, 1995: Le Pen 4,571,138 Presidential elections, 1st round, 2002: Le Pen 4,804,772, Bruno Mégret 667,043, together 5,471,815 Presidential elections, 2nd round, 2002: Le Pen 5,525,034 Presidential elections, 1st round, 2007: Le Pen 3,834,530
Again as a separate series: European elections, 1994: FN 2,050,086 European elections, 1999: FN 1,005,225, MNR 578,774, together 1,583,999 European elections, 2004: FN 1,684,947 European elections, 2009: FN 1,091,691 *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
