4. La banalisation de l’alternance dans la vie politique française au début du XXI e siècle : expression d’une maturité démocratique ou rejet de l’offre politique ?

From 1958 to 1981, French political life was dominated by a right-wing majority. The 1981 presidential and legislative elections opened the way for the practice of alternation, which became commonplace during the following three decades and became a norm of French politics. Alternation is based on the competition between two well-identified political programs on offer, which oppose each other and take turns in exercising power. It also reflects a dissatisfaction on the part of the electorate regarding the political program on offer, to which it does not offer a long-lasting solution. In the strategy to gain power that it has been adopting since 2011, the Front National seeks to respond to this dissatisfaction and to the exhaustion of the alternation model, presenting itself as the ultimate alternation?the one that has never been attempted.