A City under the Far Right

2019 ◽  
pp. 117-130
Author(s):  
John W.P. Veugelers
Keyword(s):  
Voluntary Associations ◽  
Police Force ◽  
Partisan Politics ◽  
Far Right ◽  
National Front ◽  
Book Fair ◽  
The City ◽  
Annual Book

This chapter examines how the far right won power in Toulon, and how it governed between 1995 and 2001. When corruption scandals damaged the moderate right, the National Front followed through by winning the city elections. It triumphed due to its efforts to organize, the disgrace of the moderate right, the left’s refusal to withdraw, and critical support from the ex-colonials. Constrained by law, the far right could not implement the party program of national preference. Instead, it bolstered the police force; turned the city’s annual book fair into a cultural battleground; and punished opponents and rewarded friends by fiddling with city grants to voluntary associations. Faithful to the memory of French Algeria, the far right courted the ex-colonials but also annoyed them by insisting on partisan politics. The far right reduced the city’s debt but lacked the means of proving itself.

Holding Off the National Front

2019 ◽  
pp. 163-174
Author(s):  
John W.P. Veugelers
Keyword(s):  
State Funding ◽  
Public Works ◽  
Far Right ◽  
National Front ◽  
Municipal Elections ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
Departmental Level ◽  
Power Base ◽  
Local Results ◽  
The City

This chapter examines how the moderate right has held power in Toulon ever since the far-right experiment of 1995–2001. Eleven towns in France elected the National Front to power in the 2014 municipal elections and three of those towns are in the Var. Still, the moderate right enjoys a strong hold over Toulon, whose mayor has built up a power base that rivals that of the moderate right before it fell in the mid-1990s. While avoiding scandal, he and his allies have attracted significant state funding. They have mounted public works projects and buttress their power at the departmental level with influence over the regional conurbation. The moderate right is also disciplined. The city is not a loser of globalization. Still, it faces other economic challenges. Further, local results from national (presidential and parliamentary) elections suggest the city’s far-right potential remains significant.

Empire's Legacy

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
John W.P. Veugelers
Keyword(s):  
Voluntary Associations ◽  
Alternative Interpretation ◽  
Middle Part ◽  
Political Opportunity ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Historical Approach ◽  
Southeast Region ◽  
Main Thesis ◽  
Postwar Europe

Building on the idea of latent political potential, this book offers an alternative interpretation of the contemporary far right. Its main thesis is that relations between colonizers and colonized implanted a legacy that, under certain conditions, translated into support for the far right in France. To make this argument, the book offers a model for the study of political potentials that combines a situational approach to identity relations, a networks approach to subcultural practice, and a historical approach to political opportunity. The early part of this book traces the origins and development of this potential among the European settlers of French Algeria. The middle part examines its transmission via voluntary associations and its channeling into mainstream parties. The latter part examines the conditions under which this potential redirected into the far right. Starting with colonial Algeria, after independence in 1962 the book moves between politics at three levels: France, the southeast region, and Toulon (which in 1995 became the largest city in postwar Europe to elect a far-right administration). Complementing economic explanations for nativism, this book argues that our understanding of modernity errs when it disregards the potency of anachronistic remnants.

Assessment of subjective stress in the municipal police force of the city of Rome

2002 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 127-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Pancheri ◽  
A. Martini ◽  
L. Tarsitani ◽  
M. V. Rosati ◽  
M. Biondi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Police Force ◽  
Subjective Stress ◽  
Municipal Police ◽  
The City

The Single Body of the City: Public Slaves and the Question of the Greek State

2014 ◽  
Vol 69 (03) ◽  
pp. 503-532
Author(s):  
Paulin Ismard
Keyword(s):  
Direct Democracy ◽  
Police Force ◽  
Construction Sites ◽  
Public Servants ◽  
Civic Society ◽  
Single Body ◽  
State Apparatus ◽  
Administrative Tasks ◽  
The City

AbstractsPublic slavery was an institution common to most Greek cities during the Classical and Hellenistic periods. Whether they worked on the city’s major construction sites, performed minor duties in its civic administration or filled the ranks of its police force (the famous Scythian archers of classical Athens), public slaves may be said to have constituted the first public servants known to Greek cities. Studying them from this perspective can shed new light on the long-running debate about the degree to which thepolisfunctioned as a state. Direct democracy, in the Classical Athenian sense, implied that all political prerogatives be held by the citizens themselves, and not by any kind of state apparatus. The decision to delegate administrative tasks to slaves can thus be understood as a “resistance” (as defined by the French anthropologist Pierre Clastres) on the part of the civic society to the development of this apparatus.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
John W.P. Veugelers
Keyword(s):  
European Politics ◽  
Local Power ◽  
Far Right ◽  
National Front ◽  
Southern France ◽  
Economic Distress ◽  
Postwar Europe ◽  
Latent Potential ◽  
Insight Into

Empire’s Legacy argues that subcultures in the shadows of society preserve a latent potential for the far right. The nativist cleavage has joined traditional cleavages that shape European politics, and France is a leading example. Dominant explanations overstate the importance of current factors, especially economic distress. This book travels into the imperial past to discover the roots of an enduring affinity for the far right. At its empirical core, Empire’s Legacy dissects the victory of the National Front in Toulon, which in 1995 became the biggest city in postwar Europe to elect a far-right government. This offers insight into the National Front’s success in a region of core support, southern France. Empire’s Legacy also shows what the far right does when it holds local power; and how opponents can dampen its appeal. Ernst Bloch’s ideas about politics and anachronism guide this study.

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