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Joan of Arc: the Genealogy of a Symbol and the French Far Right

Perhaps one of the most fascinating figures in French history is Joan of Arc. Joan was a 15th century peasant who experienced what only could have been described as a profound religious experience, believing that she was tasked by God to liberate France from English occupiers during the tail end of the Hundred Years War. Through her conviction she managed to convince the then disputed king of France, Charles VII, to give her control of an army of which she led the relief efforts during the siege of Orléans at the age of 17. Her efforts managed to turn back the besieging English army and led to her becoming a powerful symbol of morale for the ascendant French State. Two years later, she would be burned at the stake by English forces as an apostate.

Though her life had ended, her legend lived on. Since her death in 1431, Joan of Arc has been used as a symbol to push various political agendas throughout the centuries (Partridge 2023a, 4-5). Her image has been used to push right wing narratives like nativism and revanchism as well as left wing goals like gender equality and transgender rights. During the infamous Dreyfus Affair of the late 1890s, Joan was used as a political tool both by the anti-Dreyfusard and Dreyfusard forces (Kilgore 2008). In 1920, Joan of Arc was canonized as a saint in the Catholic church and was looked at as the patron saint of France itself. It has been speculated that this was an effort by the church to win back followers in an increasingly secular and laïc France (2023a, 37). In the present day, Joan’s symbolism has mostly become associated with the French Far Right. Since the 1980s politicians like Jean-Marie Le Pen and his daughter and political successor, Marine Le Pen, have used the mythology of Joan of Arc to garner support and push their political agendas.

Since her canonization as a saint in the Catholic church, there have been annual celebrations held initially on May 8th and later May 1st to commemorate Joan’s defense of Orléans. During these celebrations, leaders from far-right political groups like the once Front National and current Rassemblement National gather around the statue of Joan of Arc at la Place des Pyramides in Paris to deliver speeches. In these speeches, Joan is shown under a nationalistic lens. She is depicted as a pureblood French Saint sacrificing her life to expel foreign invaders (Lefranc 2023b).

An example of one of these speeches took place on May 8, 1987. Jean-Marie Le Pen (1987), the then leader of the Front National, took to the stage in front of the statue of Joan surrounded by crowds of supporters. In his speech, he describes Joan as a shield against foreign influence. An excerpt of his speech is demonstrative of this rhetoric:

Sainte Jeanne, symbole du patriotisme et de la libération de la patrie… c’est sous ton égide que nous avons placé notre combat pour la reconquête de la Patrie française : Oui, nous voulons rendre la France aux Français (Saint Joan, symbol of patriotism and liberation of the fatherland… it is under your aegis that we have placed our battle for the reconquest of the French fatherland : Yes, we want to render France to the French)…

(Le Pen, 1987).

In another of his writings, this time in a letter sent to the mayor of Strasbourg after her decision to take down a statue of Joan of Arc, Le Pen wrote about the political violence surrounding the statue’s removal:

… les patriotes soucieux de défendre l’intérêt national… et a pour volonté première de s’ériger en rempart contre la décadence qui gangrène notre pays (… these patriots care to defend the national good… and have willed first to erect a wall against the decadence that corrupts our country).

(Le Pen, 1997b)

Such as described above and in his other speeches and writings, Le Pen utilized the mythology of Joan of Arc to paint France as an ethnically French and Catholic nation to exclusion of the ethnically non-French, non-Catholic French citizens, particularly Muslims from North Africa.

In her 1998 dissertation The ideology, message, and reception of the discourse of Jean-Marie Le Pen and the Front National, Deborah Anne Connely (1998) outlines the history of Jean-Marie Le Pen and places him within a genealogy of far-right politicians that began as far back as the French Revolution in 1789 and continues through to the present day. The left-wing, right-wing model of political orientation has its origins itself within the French Revolution. In the revolutionary cabinet, the politically radical Jacobins were seated at the far left and the reactionary monarchist Ultras were seated on the far right. Against the republican and secular currents of the French Revolution, Ultra members such as Joseph de Maistre and Louis de Bonald sought to reestablish religious monarchy. Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, conservative ideals similar to those espoused by the Ultras routinely ran as a countercurrent to the generally progressive governments of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd French Republics, as seen through the monarchist and socially Catholic Policies of the populist General Georges Boulanger, monarchist Charles Maurras, and the leader of Vichy France during Nazi occupation, Phillipe Pétain (xiv). With this genealogy in mind, it is clear that Le Pen and his followers are merely a modern iteration of a religiously conservative undercurrent in French Culture.

It was in the late 1800s and early 1900s that Joan of Arc was increasingly used as a tool to push a monarchist, Catholic-nationalist agenda. After the French loss against the newly formed German state in the Franco-Prussian war, Maurice Barrès, a leading conservative political theorist, became increasingly xenophobic and anti-Protestant (1998, 84). He looked to Joan as a symbol of French Catholic and Nationalist solidarity against the German occupation and perceived Jewish influence on French Society. In 1920, his rhetoric involving Joan under this nationalistic lens decided a vote within the French Senate that created Joan of Arc Day (2008). As mentioned previously, this tradition carries on to the present.

Jean Marie Le Pen entered the French Political sphere after France lost its colonial territories of French Indochina (modern day Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam) and Algeria. Following in his precursors’ footsteps like Maurice Barrès after the loss of the Franco-Prussian War or Phillipe Pétain after the French loss to Nazi Germany in the first phase of WWII, Le Pen responded to this loss of national prestige by creating a political platform for reactionary elements within France to voice their grievances. His movement coalesced in 1983 into the Front National, a French political party espoused to nativist, religious and culturally conservative policies (2023b).

Following World War II and prior to France’s Colonial Withdrawal from Algeria and its other African territories in the 1960s, France saw an influx of migrations of peoples from said colonial possessions. When the French finally withdrew from Algeria in 1962, the native French colonists (known as pied-noirs) were resettled to France. Tensions arose between the pied-noir refugees and ethnically French against the many ethnically African immigrants, often on religious grounds. Those immigrants tended to be Muslim and faced much overt and systemic discrimination from a predominately Catholic France (Stovall, 1997a).

Le Pen capitalized on these ethno-religious tensions by deliberately appealing to xenophobia and scapegoating religious outsiders. He idolized Joan of Arc and used her mythology as a canvas to paint his anti-immigration, anti-internationalist platform. Le Pen characterized immigrants and the currents of globalization of the latter half of the 20th century as foreign invasion, and mythologized himself as a reincarnation of Joan in the present day martyring himself towards the cause of anti-immigration. This characterization has little resemblance to the reality of Joan of Arc’s situation, and denies her her history (1998, 171-172).

In 2011, Jean-Marie Le Pen stepped down from his position as president of the Front National, and his daughter Marine Le Pen rose to take his place. She continued to use Joan of Arc as a religio-political rallying symbol for supporters of the Front National. In 2018, the Front National rebranded and became known as the Rassemblement National. On March 31, 2025 Marine was condemned to four years imprisonment and 5 years of being barred from political office for embezzlement of funds (2025). Though she is still a focalization point for many of France’s far right, it would seem that with the latter Le Pen’s apparent political demise the potency of Joan of Arc’s symbolic value has waned as well.

Works Cited:

Kilgore, Jennifer. 2008. Revue LISA/LISA e-journal. Littératures, Histoire des Idées, Images, Sociétés du Monde Anglophone–Literature, History of Ideas, Images and Societies of the English-speaking World 6, no. 1: 279-296.

Connelly, Deborah Anne. 1998. The ideology, message, and reception of the discourse of Jean-Marie Le Pen and the Front National. The Pennsylvania State University.

Jean-Marie, Le Pen. 1987. Review of Déclaration de M. Jean-Marie Le Pen, Président Du Front National, Sur Jeanne d’Arc et l’Identité Nationale, Paris Le 10 Mai 1987. Edited by the Direction de l'information légale et administrative. Presented at the Joan of Arc Festival, May 10. https://www.vie-publique.fr/discours/254626-jean-marie-le-pen-10051987-jeanne-d-arc-et-l-identite-nationale.

Partridge, Dominique. 2023a. “The Construction of the Myth of Joan of Arc and Its Perpetuation.” The Construction of the Myth of Joan of Arc and Its Perpetuation. doi:10.5281/ZENODO.16741914.

Lefranc, Martin. 2023b. "Les Fêtes de Jeanne d’Arc à Orléans de 1989 à 2023: un enjeu mémoriel et politique." Histoire Politique. Revue du Centre d'histoire de Sciences Po 50.

Stovall, Tyler. 1997a. "Opinions on Current Reading: The Resurgence of Racial Hate in France." The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education (15): 141. https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/opinions-on-current-reading-resurgence-racial/docview/195551843/se-2.

Le Pen, Jean Marie. 1997b. “Lettre ouverte de M. Jean-Marie Le Pen, président du Front national, à Mme Catherine Trautmann, maire de Strasbourg.” In “Présent.” edited by Direction de l'information légale et administrative. Vie-Publique.fr. 2025. https://www.vie-publique.fr/discours/246356-jm-le-pen-21031997-deboulonnage-de-la-statue-de-jeanne-d-arc-strasbourg.

‌La. 2025. “Condamnation de Marine Le Pen : La Cour d’Appel de Paris Envisage Un Procès Avec ‘Une Décision à l’Été 2026’. Retrouvez Les Informations et Réactions Au Jugement Dans l’Affaire Des Assistants FN Au Parlement Européen.” Le Monde.fr. April 2025. https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/live/2025/04/01/en-direct-condamnation-de-marine-le-pen-la-cour-d-appel-de-paris-envisage-un-proces-avec-une-decision-a-l-ete-2026_6588724_823448.html.