Like Trump, Le Pen has a voter base beyond angry whites in the economically depressed regions that account for most of the 900,000 industrial jobs France has lost over the past 15 years. The FN counts the sun-soaked south as its historic stronghold, where social conservatives and staunch nationalists returning from colonial-era Algeria have long backed the movement. But if Le Pen manages to ride the global populist tide to a shocking win after Brexit and Trump, decaying northern industrial towns like Hayange will have helped her get there. [...]
Outside Engelmann’s Town Hall, a few Trotskyist activists could be seen handing out leaflets. Hayange’s first postwar mayor was a Communist, but the town’s far-left influence has waned in keeping with the decline of a party that up until the 1980s was a major national player, with its members even serving as ministers. François Mitterand’s election in 1981 as France’s first Socialist president, and the country’s longest postwar leader, made the mainstream left an electable force — but it sapped much support from the once-popular Communists in the process. [...]
The difference, it seems, is Le Pen’s timely messaging on immigration and Islam. Like elsewhere in the West, a fading economy has been accompanied by a backlash against newcomers. Many locals are of immigrant stock — descended from generations of Italians and others who came to work in the valley’s mines and steelworks since the end of the 19th century. But there’s a growing sentiment that more recent arrivals are different.
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