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expat, extremism, france, Francois Hollande, French election, French politics, Hollande, immigrant, Jean-Marie Le Pen, journalism, journalist, le figaro, Le Pen, Marine Le Pen, mohamed merah, Nicolas Sarkozy, paris, politics, travel writing
“Collective queasiness” is the phrase that a fellow journalist at Le Figaro suggested to describe how France felt the day after the first round of the French elections.
In the days since then, the press has been buzzing with the roughly 17% of votes earned by the third-place candidate, far-right Marine Le Pen. Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if Le Pen was actually getting more headlines than the winner, Socialist François Hollande, or the second place, current president Nicolas Sarkozy. And after all… she was only about 10 percentage points behind Hollande.
And it isn’t just the press that is buzzing with this news. A Facebook status I saw right after the results came in said (in French): “François Hollande!!!! … but 20% for the Front national… now that is scary.”
I think that fear is at the center of this debate. For, who are the voters that vote for Le Pen and the Front national? They are rural or working class. They are people who feel most threatened by the instability and change caused by globalization and the economic situation in France. Nicolas Sarkozy, the president of the rich, offered them no security. And Marine Le Pen promises to protect both them and France.*
What I don’t like is how Le Pen’s answer to collective fear is closure. She is isolationist and doesn’t like the European Union.
But what scares me the most (and other French) is her closure towards anyone who is different. She may not be as openly anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic as her father is/was, but the comments are thinly veiled.
French daily Le Monde published an article on her final campaign rally before the first round of the election. The crowd of supporters chanted “on est chez nous,” which very roughly translates to “this is our home.” Le Pen’s response?
“It’s because this is YOUR home that you have the right to not want these French-Algerians like Mohamed Merah!”
Whoa.
For those of you who don’t know, Mohamed Merah is the alleged cold-blooded killer of seven people, including three children.
He also happens to be a French citizen of Algerian heritage. Which makes him either a homegrown terrorist or just a sick maniac.
And whatever Merah is, Le Pen’s statement is very, very dangerous. It adds hate to an already fearful situation.
And in an effort to win these fearful voters for the second round, Sarkozy is taking on the same kind of rhetoric. In the week after the first round, he began to pressuring the EU to allow nations to close their borders in case of an inundation of immigrants.
“If Europe can’t defend its borders, France will do it,” Sarkozy said.
Sarkozy’s full-on attempt to win these far-right voters is new for his party. In the past, when Marine’s father Jean-Marie Le Pen was making a stir, former conservative president Jacques Chirac established a so-called political “quarantine” on the Front national. This meant he absolutely forbid members of the right to associate or compromise with the far-right.
And now, in search of votes, Sarkozy has crossed this barrier.
Left-centrist newspaper Le Monde said “the end doesn’t justify the means.”
But Nicolas Sarkozy was right in recognizing the people that would vote for the far-right. They are a large and legitimate group that have been voting that way for some time. Fear and the Front national have been making a stir in French politics since at least the 1980s.
People have a right to be scared by lack of jobs, instability and economic crisis. Heck, I’m scared by all this stuff, too. I am scared of the unstable economic situation. I am scared that I won’t find a job doing what I love or, worse yet, that one day I won’t be able to afford rent or feed a family.
But I am most scared by this cycle of hate. I quoted Marine Le Pen earlier in this post as bringing up Mohamed Merah during her campaign. Well, Mohamed Merah also brought up the far-right in his own bloody, horrific “campaign.” As justification for the murder of seven people, he cited anti-Muslim sentiment in France.
But Merah wasn’t just upset about things in France. He committed his first murder the day the news broke about a U.S. soldier who slaughtered civilians in Afghanistan.
In my opinion, this election is about recognizing and building on fear, not about finding solutions. And in my opinion, this is a microcosm of a world situation.
It makes me queasy.
* If you read French, I suggest you read this great piece called “My village voted Front national” by a blogger who writes about life in a small village for French newspaper Le Monde. It is a wonderful portrait of what brings people to vote for the extreme right. One fascinating and hilarious quote brought to light the complex relationship that voters have with the party (and a seeming reluctance to admit their vote): “Oh, no… no one in Mézères votes FN… and yet the FN earned 30% of votes.”