Interesting view of France drifting rightwards... Zemmour is just the beginning Considering the amount of turmoil Britain’s relationship with Europe has caused in the past half-decade, you’d think British commentary would be paying more attention to the French election, and the dramatic Rightward shift of the French electorate it has already revealed. The entire French Left, representing every shade from Communism to soft-Left social democracy, can barely muster 20% voter support combined. The centre, represented by Macron, has shifted further towards a traditional perception of Right-wing politics than anyone on the Tory benches, railing against woke American cultural imperialism, shutting down Islamist NGOs and moving towards a markedly civilisationist discourse about what it means to be European.
I think it is because the Left isn't able to compromise, it's not really in their nature, so the centre has had to swing a little to the Right to muster votes and support. Of course a lot of this is just lip service. They will talk more seriously than what they actually intend to do. I think the Left in France are getting disillusioned that the government does not seem able to provide everything they want. They had to go with Macron in the first place because the Left did not have enough support by themselves, and they viewed it as a compromise of necessity to prevent Le Pen from winning the presidency. The Centre had been trying to court the Left, and now the Centre seems to be trying to court the Right, because the earlier honeymoon with the Left is ending.
There is thing to relativise, especially as "right" and "left" things. People here in France remained attached to public healthcare, education. Furthermore even people like Marine le Pen tend to defend that system. The thing is that the left turned to a large organized force that improved the situation of working classes in France through the establishement of healthcare, socialcare and public education toward a hermetic class giving morale lessons on immigration or caring about lgbt. There is many components of what constitute the left. Macron is more for dismembering the nanny state and has globally a policy going more toward the financial elites. To the lgbt he gave a law that give too lesbians and single women the right to get artificial insemination, to the feminists he gave a state secretary. So he has that varnish of pro lgbt rights when he get a more right wing approach on financial issues (deleting a specific tax on richness for instance). The left in France failed to give any credible answer on security, immigration and so on. There was a candidate of the green party who asked for more tax on fuels. That kind of thing illustrate how a large part became. The biggest social uprising was the yellow jacket. How it did start ? A rise of taxes on fuel. A lot of people living in the countryside are very poor and fuel is an important cost for them because they have to drive a lot. How can you pretend to be left wing and ask for among the poorest people of the country to bear the burden of a measure even an ecological one ? It's easy to fill the void in such intellectual emptiness.
Great replacement of blond blue eyes far right candidates with berber jewish people. (It's a joke obviously).
Macron was never "of the left". He was a self avowed cross party centrist and part of his election success was that he didn't tie himself to historical dogma. Macron's rise on tax on fuel didn't take the cost outside the prices in other European countries. But neither did Macron subsidise the price of fuel which is more about international prices, not national ones. The rise in tax on fuel is about the environment, and is indicative of the balance a govt has to strike between causing a rise on living and causing an environmental disaster. Perhaps someone should explain that to the Gilets Jaunes. BTW you haven't explained what Zemmour is the beginning of. I doubt it is environmental awareness. I think it is rather exhuming old dead and buried issues that after 75 years, should be left alone to rot.
