TY - JOUR
AU - de Nadal, Lluis
PY - 2022
DA - December
TI - Climate change: bad news for populism? How the Rassemblement National used COVID-19 to promote its environmental agenda
JO - Nationalities Papers
DO - https://doi.org/10.1017/nps.2022.104
AB - 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.
PB - Cambridge University Press
UR - https://eprints.gla.ac.uk/303360/
KW - Coronavirus (COVID-19)
KW - Minority groups
KW - Environment, community and place
ER