Gays, Lesbians, and the French Republic’s Evil. How do homosexuals come to vote for extreme right parties in France?

This paper looks at far-right gay and lesbian (GL) politicization process in France. The political behavior of gay and lesbians have started to be studied in Europe only recently (Durand, 2021). This field of studies mostly show GLs leftist tendency (Turnbull-Dugarte, 2020) and remain exclusively based on quantitative research. At the same time, a growing literature has focused on homonationalism in Europe (Colpani et al., 2014; Ammaturo, 2015; Perreau 2016, chap. 3), looking at the national construction of sexual nationalism. Yet, how GLs become nationalist and far-right voters remain largely unknown, which calls for the study of their political socialization. How do they become far-right voters? How does far-right identity fit with homosexual identity? This paper will tackle this issue, based on qualitative material from a PhD research. The material counts 90 in-depth biographical interviews with French right-wing and left-wing GLs. It will specifically focus on the 10 GLs voting for the French far-right party Front national in order to thoroughly dive into their politicization process. I will look at their primary and secondary political socialization to reveal the mechanisms of their political and sexual identities. The interviews last more than 2.5 hours and focused on sexual identity, family life, and political behavior. The qualitative data will be the basis of the analysis, but I will look at the ESS French cumulative data (using same-sex couple method) to put the qualitative results into perspective. France will also be put into perspective through European comparison regarding far-right parties (Damhuis, 2020) or GLs political behavior (Hunklinger & Ajanovic 2022; Turnbull-Dugarte, 2022). In the analysis, I will pay attention to the intersection with gender and religion. The paper will show three patterns of “politicization careers” among French homosexual extreme right voters. I argue that, far from being contradictory to far-right identity, homosexuality plays a role in becoming a far-right voter, but differently according to the career pattern. Through its comprehensive qualitative inquiry the paper deepens our knowledge on homonationalism and homosexual voting behavior.