While the literature has traditionally associated the Rassemblement National with small business owners, the past decade has seen prominent figures of big business rally to the far-right party, from Vincent Bolloré to Pierre-Edouard Stérin and the Meeschaert family. This article re-evaluates the relationship between the far right and business circles by exploring the ties the Rassemblement National maintains with different fractions of the capitalist class. Drawing on scholarship on social blocs and business elites, the article shows that the party relies on three hierarchically structured coalitions: (1) a core coalition of major business leaders, characterized by their involvement in sectors such as alternative finance, fossil fuels, and domestic tech; (2) a broader coalition of small business owners, defined not only by the predominance of certain sectors (agriculture, real estate) but also by Rassemblement National’s effort to divide small employers along other lines, favouring small-scale, domestically oriented, family-owned businesses belonging to its traditional constituency, to the detriment of others; (3) an electoral coalition constituted with petite bourgeoisie and upper working class groups. The article draws on four sources of empirical data to capture the various fractions of the business class involved in the rise of the RN: an exhaustive review of press coverage concerning links between big business and the far right; a database of economically oriented amendments submitted by RN deputies and MEPs between 2022 and 2025; an analysis of the party’s economic proposals across different sectors; and a second-hand analysis of the electoral base of the party. In complement to a literature focused mainly on the motivations of Rassemblement National’s voters, this article sheds light on the economic forces underpinning the far-right party, the transformations it envisions in the French accumulation regime, and the contradictions that emerge from them.

Speaker 

Théo Bourgeron, University of Edinburgh

Dr Théo Bourgeron is a Chancellor's fellow at the University of Edinburgh, in the School of Social and Political Sciences. His research currently explores business support for the far-right. He has co-authored books on links between the financial sector and the alt-right (Alt-Finance, Pluto Books, 2022) and recent transformations of pharmaceutical markets (Peak Pharma, OUP, 2025). He has published in journals such as the Socio-Economic Review, Economy & Society, New Political Economy, Organization Studies. His latest paper on "Economic Sociology and the Far-Right" has been published a few months ago by the Journal of Cultural Economy.

Chair 

Cyril Benoît, Sciences Po, CEE, CNRS