Political Party Positioning: Politics = Semiotics

The concept of the "central block" has newly emerged during the recent snap legislative elections in France, initially introduced by Emmanuel Macron's Renaissance party and widely adopted by the media.

This shift breaks from the traditional single-party representation of the center in France by the Modem. It's the first time the central attribute has been applied to Macron's Renaissance party, typically described as fluctuating between right and left.

Why this new expression?

During the campaign, the meanings of right and left were "extremized." Both were portrayed as extremes. The so-called "republican" parties, like the Socialist Party, the Ecologists, and the Republicans, were associated with their most extreme elements under the presidential slogan "It's us, or the extremes."

The "central block," as a concept of centrality or moderation, positions itself as a reasonable alternative to these extremes, which are often deemed irrational. The term connotes a mass—solid and stable—offering reassurance in times of political and economic uncertainty.??Parties are demonstrating semiotic creativity to position themselves outside the traditional 'left-right' opposition axis, which has been synonymous with disappointments for voters.

They have tried both, so it is necessary to appear as 'something else, a novelty: either neither one nor the other, or both at the same time.

- Marine Le Pen deliberately distances her party, the National Rally from traditional left-right politics. She asserts that both the right and the left have the same aims and that their division is artificial, coining the term "UMPS" by amalgamating the names of the right-wing UMP and the left-wing Socialist Party (PS). This strategy can be semiotically defined as "non-right + non-left."

- Emmanuel Macron has shifted from "neither right nor left" to the so-called "at the same time," (??en même temps??) blending actions from both right and left sensibilities, thus positioning himself simultaneously on both sides—a new variant by association, while avoiding the now outdated labels of right or left. This approach, unlike that of Le Pen which distances itself from both right and left, does not reject either side but refuses to choose between the two. This process creates a mediation between heterogeneous elements (right and left), in what Michel Foucault might have called a "dispositif."?

After Macronism, traditional parties are trying to re-establish the classic left-right division, not without a certain pride. The party "The Republicans" has just renamed itself "The Republican Right," rehabilitating the word "right," here qualified by the adjective "Republican" in opposition to the "non-Republican" right, that is, the far right, with whom some members of these former "Republicans" have aligned.

The challenge for the so-called "traditional" parties, both right and left, now seems to be to respond to voters demanding ambivalent measures, both from the right (immigration control, security, etc.) and from the left (repeal of the pension reform, more public services, etc.).

Have the French become right + left?