Trump’s populist influence is being felt in French polls
If you asked a Wisconsin farmer why he voted for Donald Trump when his greatgrandparents supported Senator Robert La Follette, a maverick progressive, he might not have an answer. If you asked a French voter from the wider suburbs what he might have in common with a Wisconsin farmer, he would give a bewildered laugh. Yet there is a link between the upsurge for Trump, which surprised even the Republican establishment, and the tide of French voters for the National Front and its vocal candidate, Marine Le Pen, who just launched her raucous campaign. Each combines disaffection from the established parties — all liars, damn liars — a sense of dispossession where one cannot separate economic and job safety issues from wider cultural insecurity, which leads to a reversal of attitude towards newcomers and foreigners. Voters come from both the right and left.
The reversal towards foreigners is particularly telling. France alone in Europe shares a unique characteristic with the United States: It has long been an immigrant country. Every other European nation saw large waves of emigration from the mid-19th century to the 1930s. Millions of Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese, Poles, North Africans and Western Africans came to France in the heyday of economic growth, and while there was friction, xenophobic groups were not a significant force. In fact, the strongest discrimination targeted competitors from within — anti-semitism defined the French far right more than xenophobia in the pre-WWII era. Republicanism was the functional equivalent of “In God we trust,” also serving to paper over obvious inequalities and common prejudice.
Post-war, immigration turned to non-European newcomers. Still French speaking for the most part, and despite of racism, they gradually integrated in what was, until a decade ago, the world’s most functional melting pot, as measured, for example, by the rate of intermarriage. Two events tipped the balance: a generous policy adopted in the late 1970s, allowing family relatives to join immigrants already in place, at the same time that unemployment rates began an inexorable rise. The French-born children of the previous generation of immigrants are not integrating and often revert to imagined communities from their countries of origin. The simultaneous shift of policy from integration to multiculturalism transformed into a political disaster.
Never mind what is really responsible, whether the rise of extremism, which reduces intercommunity exchanges and marital unions, or mass unemployment, now at 10 per cent and reaching 50 per cent in the most disaffected neighborhoods. Communitarianism and destitute ghettos are worse in the United States, but fear pervades France too: Marseille’s roughly 30 violent murders per year are talked about as much as Chicago’s 700 victims.
This suggests that France could be sensitive to the Trump vote effect. Here is a brash celebrity from New York who battles the status quo with plebeian appeal, whose money largely originated in the building industry — the brick and mortar economy. In France, too, there is widespread suspicion, especially in “la France périphérique” of the “elites”: journalists, who rate even lower than politicians in opinion polls, high civil servants with their revolving door from politics to large companies and finance. A major issue for the less educated French is what jobs and acquired benefits they might keep as the digital economy takes control. Here is a politician who talks about “us and them,” what the elites like to call a nativist. The United States and France share similar feelings of dispossession: It may be economic, the fear of “falling” or “déclinisme” is widespread. It may be based on tensions about identity, with Mexican immigrants and the language issue, the few but conspicuous Muslim immigrants, viewed as threats. In France, with the largest percentage of Muslims of all EU countries except Bulgaria, the prospect of another wave of Muslim newcomers, combined with an immediate terrorist threat, has tipped public opinion against immigration.
But there are also great differences. In the United States, the wage decline of bluecollar as well as many white collar employees is as undeniable as the record-breaking surge of a small class collecting the benefits of globalisation. In France, wages have continued to rise, and an extensive tax system targets the rich. A majority of Americans still reject universal health care, but the French seem ready to go to the barricades if it is withdrawn for French citizens — they are less touchy about foreign residents. The Christian right exists in France, but has less influence than in the United States. Part of the radical right in the United States rejects the federal government, while this is almost unknown in France. In the United States, the 65+ age group voted predominantly for Trump, and the Democrats still hold on to the youth vote. In France, the National Front is the leading party among young voters, while retirees still vote for conservative parties.
Whatever superficial similarity there might be between the movements of Trump and Le Pen, their rise in power would produce very different results.
Whatever superficial similarity there might be between the movements of Trump and Le Pen, their rise in power would produce very different results.