Le Pen Winning The Rust Belt
Patrick Howley
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Nationalist French presidential candidate is winning in France’s version of the “Rust Belt,” among lower-income disenfranchised workers.
Though Le Pen trails her globalist opponent Emmanuel Macron with one day to go until the election, her sizable lead in the working-class demographic presents further evidence that populist nationalism is resonating with those left behind by what President Trump calls “the false song of globalism.”
As Mike Doran points out, the unemployed working class is gravitating toward Le Pen, while international globalist elites like Barack Obama are flocking to defend her pro-European Union opponent.
The Wall Street Journal reports : “Joblessness has remained persistently high in France since the 2008 global financial crisis. The latest nationwide figures say 10% of French workers are out of a job. Ms. Le Pen generally finds more support in areas with high unemployment, a look at the 96 départements of mainland France shows. However, she also finds some support in areas of lower-than-average unemployment. Mr. Macron’s support, in contrast, is heavily concentrated in areas of lower unemployment. In the 32 areas where unemployment is higher than average, only 3 were won by Mr. Macron in the first round of voting, the same number won by far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon. The remaining 26 were won by Ms. Le Pen. François Fillon, of the center-right Les Républicains, only won areas of lower-than-average unemployment.”
Le Pen’s demographics predictably mirror those of President Trump’s Deplorable base and Nigel Farage’s pro-Brexit coalition in Great Britain.
Clearly, the populist nationalist movement led by Trump, chief White House strategist Steve Bannon, Farage, Le Pen, and Rome mayor Victoria Raggi has found a constituency. The question is: will that constituency become so beaten down by the rapidly advancing forces of globalism that it will never dare to rise again?
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