Very good post Sua,
But I am still wondering if it is ‘only’ protest voting that we are seeing. And even if it is… as I said on another thread on the topic:
Votes of disaccord with the policies of Weimar and apathy in the electorate led to the NSDAP entering the Reichstag in 1932…was that a good idea?
Sorry but, that was posted in the wrong thread… I jumbled the back and forward buttons.
Well that’s not so certain. Crime levels are on the rise but still not as high as many American cities for instance. The problem is perception and then a whole panoply of classical issues ranging from recession to colonial guilt through class struggle, de-industrialization… and so on.
France has for long been caught in a quandary towards the national identity… on one exterem side ‘Vive la Difference’ as in Horray we are different because we LIVE in France and on the other side the slight but essential change to; because we ARE French. To be honest I think that we have always been somewhat xenophobic, even I who belonged to the lived fraction for many years used to look down at anyone who didn’t make the ‘obvious’ choice of living ‘a la Francaise’. Then again not only Le Pen would call me a foreigner, but so would French Immigration Services…
In any case I think that in Le Pen’s success the immigration and race issues are second hand to recession, social wellfare and general unease with a changing Europe. He didn’t get much more votes than in 1995…it’s just that Jospin got so much fewer than any Socialist candidate ever before.
(((Sparculees)))*
no hijack…just an in-betweenie *