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I'm Jim Shields, Professor of French Politics and Modern History, and Head of French Studies at Aston.
My main area of expertise is French politics.
My particular specialism is
the history of far-right politics in France, from the Vichy regime of the 1940s
to the present day. We tend to think of France
as a model republic, with the great values of liberty,
equality, fraternity, but France is also a country that collaborated with Nazi Germany,
that has a strong tradition of authoritarian nationalism,
and that today has the most potentially powerful far-right party
in Europe, in Marine Le Pen's "Front National".
What does that tell us about France and French political culture?
That's one of the questions at the heart of my research.
My research has 3 main impacts.
The first - an academic impact - of publishing specialist
studies that contribute to expert knowledge in my field;
the second - an impact for my students, who are working with me and use
my publications as part of their research base;
and the third - a wider, public impact.
I'm fortunate to work in a field that generates public interest
and I've been able to take my subject out to wider audiences
by doing a lot of news broadcasts, discussion programs,
debates, etcetera on national and international
television and radio. I work mostly independently
though I work collaboratively at times too. I've recently
lead a joint study of political radicalism in France, with colleagues
from France, the UK and Canada.
My work is empirical -
it's a combination of fieldwork, covering French elections on the ground,
attending political rallies, interviewing political subjects,
and document-based research - analyzing election results,
political programs, public opinion, survey data, etcetera.
These are some of the tools of my trade.
France is facing a serious economic crisis but also
a deepening political crisis. With an economy in recession,
record unemployment, severely overstretched public finances,
serious social problems in some areas, and a growing
public disaffection with mainstream
politicians - those who are viewed as the elites of Paris and Brussels.
How do parties of government respond to these problems
without increasing that disaffection and creating more
space for radical populist parties -
of right and left, who in the last presidential election,
took between them a full third of the vote?
That's the big question for French politics
right now and analysts like me will be busy looking at the Front National in particular
in forthcoming local, regional and European elections
before we get to the presidential and parliamentary elections of 2017.
My field is driven by events
and is therefore constantly changing. That's its fascination. It's also its challenge.
There are few things in the future of
which I can be certain but one is my continuing fascination
with a field of research that is always compelling and
surprising, never dull or predictable.