French nationalism in the context of "Flag of France"

The natural borders of France (French: Frontières naturelles de la France) were a nationalist model of French state-building developed during the French Revolution that called for the expansion of France's borders to prominent natural boundaries. These boundaries correspond to the Rhine, the Alps, the Mediterranean Sea, the Pyrenees and the Atlantic Ocean.

According to the historian Peter Sahlins, "as a model of French identity, it formed part of a constitutive myth of the state."

The far-right (French: Extrême droite) tradition in France finds its origins in the Third Republic with Boulangism and the Dreyfus affair. In the 1880s, General Georges Boulanger, called "General Revenge" (Général Revanche), championed demands for military revenge against Imperial Germany as retribution for the defeat and fall of the Second French Empire during the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71). This stance, known as revanchism, began to exert a strong influence on French nationalism. Soon thereafter, the Dreyfus affair provided one of the political division lines of France. French nationalism, which had been largely associated with left-wing and Republican ideologies before the Dreyfus affair, turned after that into a main trait of the right-wing and, moreover, of the far right. A new right emerged, and nationalism was reappropriated by the far-right who turned it into a form of ethnic nationalism, blended with anti-Semitism, xenophobia, anti-Protestantism and anti-Masonry. The Action française (AF), first founded as a journal and later a political organization, was the matrix of a new type of counter-revolutionary right-wing, which continues to exist today. During the interwar period, the Action française and its youth militia, the Camelots du Roi, were very active. Far-right leagues organized riots.

After World War II, the Organisation armée secrète (OAS) was created in Madrid in 1961 by French military personnel opposed to the independence of Algeria. Jean-Marie Le Pen founded the Front National (FN) party in 1972. At the 1986 legislative elections, the FN managed to obtain 35 seats, with 10% of the votes. Mark Frederiksen, a French Algeria activist, created in April 1966 a neo-Nazi group, the FANE (Fédération d'action nationaliste et européenne, Nationalist and European Federation of Action). However, in 1978, neo-Nazi members of the GNR-FANE broke again with the FN. During the 1980s, the National Front managed to gather, under Jean-Marie Le Pen's leadership, most rival far-right tendencies of France, following a succession of splits and alliances with other, minor parties, during the 1970s.

The "Marie-Louises" were the conscripts, mostly teenage French boys, who were conscripted into Napoleon's French Imperial Army between October 1813 and 1815. On 9 October 1813, Empress of the French Marie Louise issued a decree ordering the conscription of 200,000 men into the army; as there was a shortage of military-age males in France, recruiting regulations were changed to allow for those as young as 14 and as short as 5 feet 1 inch (1.55 m) to be conscripted. The majority of Marie-Louises served in the campaign in north-east France from January to March 1814, defending against an invasion by the Sixth Coalition. Though they received as little as two weeks of training and would be soundly defeated in the War, French historians lionized the Marie-Louises as courageous youths motivated by patriotic ideals instead of being forced into military service.

The conscription of so many men proved unable to prevent the Sixth Coalition from defeating the French and occupying Paris, resulting in Napoleon's abdication on 13 April 1814, ending the War of the Sixth Coalition. Eventually, the term "Marie-Louises" was extended to anyone conscripted into the French Imperial army between 1813 and 1815, including when Napoleon briefly assumed power in France again during the Hundred Days. The Marie-Louises were featured in several works of art and literature, particularly after the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 to bolster French nationalism and patriotism. In 1914, the term was revived to describe Frenchmen conscripted into the French army after the outbreak of World War I.

Action Française (French pronunciation: [aksjɔ̃ fʁɑ̃sɛːz], AF; English: French Action) is a French far-right monarchist and nationalist political movement. The name was also given to a journal associated with the movement, L'Action Française, sold by its own youth organization, the Camelots du Roi.

The movement and the journal were founded by Maurice Pujo and Henri Vaugeois in 1899, as a nationalist reaction against the intervention of left-wing intellectuals on behalf of Alfred Dreyfus. The royalist militant Charles Maurras quickly joined Action Française and became its principal ideologist. Under the influence of Maurras, Action Française became royalist, counter-revolutionary (objecting to the legacy of the French Revolution), anti-parliamentary, and pro-decentralization, espousing corporatism, integralism, and Roman Catholicism.

The National Rally (French: Rassemblement national, [ʁasɑ̃bləmɑ̃ nɑsjɔnal], RN), known as the National Front from 1972 to 2018 (French: Front national, [fʁɔ̃ nɑsjɔnal], FN), is a French far-right political party, described as right-wing populist and nationalist. It is the single largest parliamentary opposition party in the National Assembly since 2022. It opposes immigration, advocating significant cuts to legal immigration, protection of "French identity", and stricter control of illegal immigration. The party advocates a "more balanced" and "independent" French foreign policy, opposing French military intervention in Africa while supporting France leaving NATO's integrated command. It also supports reform of the European Union (EU), economic interventionism, protectionism, and zero tolerance for breaches of law and order.

The party was founded in 1972 by the Ordre Nouveau to be the legitimate political vehicle for the far-right movement. Jean-Marie Le Pen was its founder and leader until his resignation in 2011. While its influence was marginal until 1984, the party's role as a nationalist electoral force has grown considerably. It has put forward a candidate at every presidential election but one since 1974. In the 2002 presidential election, Jean-Marie Le Pen advanced to the second round but finished a distant second in the runoff to Jacques Chirac. His daughter Marine Le Pen was elected to succeed him as party leader in 2012. Jordan Bardella assumed the leadership in 2022.

The League of Patriots (French: Ligue des Patriotes) was a French far-right league, founded in 1882 by the nationalist poet Paul Déroulède, historian Henri Martin and politician Félix Faure. The Ligue began as a non-partisan nationalist league, supported among others by writer Victor Hugo, calling for 'revanche' (revenge for the French defeat during the Franco-Prussian War) against the German Empire. One of the original purposes of the Ligue was to offer pre-military training, allowing members to participate in gymnastics and rifle shooting.