Good article. I appreciate the objective and factual tone. I lived in France for 20 years and still have family and a house in a rural area. The small city near to where I live has profoundly changed over the past 25 years. It has become sadder, poorer, and with more social dysfunction including drugs. But whereas the population was about 95% French ( white) 25 years ago, today the actual city must be something like 25% immigrants.
There is high employment in our area, around 10% at least. Many of the elderly French are living on tiny government pensions, 1000 euros a month or so- after working for 40 years. Yet people see immigrants from Africa and elsewhere welcomed, given money for rent, free French lessons, help to get drivers license, and free healthcare. I met a 75 year old African lady ( very sweet) who had recently arrived. But I couldn't help thinking that this woman will never work, and will have free healthcare and housing for the rest of her life.
The public schools are not great in rural France, the universities are dingy, the government is always saying that the healthcare system is broke. So people wonder( reasonably), Why are they accepting so many immigrants who cost the system money? If you want to know why Le Pen is popular, this is why.
As an American, I appreciate these dispatches on populism from around the world. It helps put some context into the trend beyond just Trump (and increasingly, versions here from the left as well).
The article is factually careful, but its framing treats EU integration as reality and national sovereignty as disruption. That is the contested premise. For Bardella’s supporters, the disruption may already be the existing order: a country losing cohesion, voters losing control, and immigration policy shaped by institutions insulated from the people living with its consequences.
The deeper question is not only whether Bardella can adapt to European realities. It is whether those European realities helped produce the crisis he is claiming he can fix.
Good article. I appreciate the objective and factual tone. I lived in France for 20 years and still have family and a house in a rural area. The small city near to where I live has profoundly changed over the past 25 years. It has become sadder, poorer, and with more social dysfunction including drugs. But whereas the population was about 95% French ( white) 25 years ago, today the actual city must be something like 25% immigrants.
There is high employment in our area, around 10% at least. Many of the elderly French are living on tiny government pensions, 1000 euros a month or so- after working for 40 years. Yet people see immigrants from Africa and elsewhere welcomed, given money for rent, free French lessons, help to get drivers license, and free healthcare. I met a 75 year old African lady ( very sweet) who had recently arrived. But I couldn't help thinking that this woman will never work, and will have free healthcare and housing for the rest of her life.
The public schools are not great in rural France, the universities are dingy, the government is always saying that the healthcare system is broke. So people wonder( reasonably), Why are they accepting so many immigrants who cost the system money? If you want to know why Le Pen is popular, this is why.
As an American, I appreciate these dispatches on populism from around the world. It helps put some context into the trend beyond just Trump (and increasingly, versions here from the left as well).
He sounds like a French peach!
The article is factually careful, but its framing treats EU integration as reality and national sovereignty as disruption. That is the contested premise. For Bardella’s supporters, the disruption may already be the existing order: a country losing cohesion, voters losing control, and immigration policy shaped by institutions insulated from the people living with its consequences.
The deeper question is not only whether Bardella can adapt to European realities. It is whether those European realities helped produce the crisis he is claiming he can fix.