How France pivoted to the right

[brooklynite]

Politico

PARIS – France may be the land of generous social welfare policies and strong labor protections but anyone tuning in to the early stages of the presidential campaign would think the country is pretty rightwing.

Candidates running for president who have promised the toughest lines on immigration and security have benefited from the biggest momentum in recent weeks, while an unprecedented third of the electorate says they are planning to vote for a far-right candidate.

The rise of Eric Zemmour, a far-right TV pundit who says Islam is an existential threat to France and has twice been convicted of inciting hatred, is perhaps the most visible sign of the rightwing wave.

Another is the turn taken by conservatives from Les Républicains (LR), the party of former presidents Nicolas Sarkozy and Jacques Chirac. Crowded out on their left by Macron’s economic liberalism and on their right by the normalization of the far-right, conservatives have hardened their positions on security and immigration in an effort to retain a base.

[leftstreet]

1. Vacuums left by failed neoliberal policies get filled

and not with anything good

[David__77]

11. That is correct.

Specifically, it relates to the abandonment of labor politics by much of the nominal left.

[betsuni]

2. Why claims that right-wing populism in the U.S. is caused by economic anxiety are wrong.

Democratic voters began leaving the party in the sixties when manufacturing jobs were plentiful and the rich were taxed at 70%. Racism, culture wars. Not economics. Blaming 90s trade policies ("neoliberal" ) is a convenient way to accuse Democrats of supposedly abandoning the working class in favor of Wall Street and wealthy donors/corporations (that propaganda is really getting old). Manufacturing jobs began disappearing in the 70s. Trump voters were financially better off than Democratic voters.

Political scientist at Harvard University, Pippa Norris: "A lot of data suggests that countries with robust welfare states tend to have stronger far-right movements. Providing White voters with higher levels of economic security does not tamp down their anxieties about race and immigration."

[WarGamer]

3. People don't understand...

Europeans (even conservative EU'ers) really LIKE their social safety net... they love it so much they don't want any outsiders to have it also.

It's not that they're against the social goodies... they just want to make sure it benefits THEM.

[JI7]

4. The same is true of White People in the US . That's why when people bring up their support for FDR

they ignore that they stopped supporting democrats and these social programs when democrats passed civil rights and non whites were going to start to benefit from it also.

[WarGamer]

5. true... good point.

[DFW]

7. I'm not sure what country that attitude is supposed to be from

The ones I frequent, and whose languages I speak, have a different take. This would be mainly Scandinavia, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, France and Spain, for the record.

It's not that there is some attitude of an eight year old, who doesn't want other kids playing with his baseball. The reality is that their social safety nets were set up using simple arithmetic. They calculated the needs of their populations, allowed for growth of same, and based their systems on revenue and outlay. The influx of some immigrants was not enough to upset the calculations. They were elastic enough to allow for immigration, especially to alieve labor shortages, a post-war drag on local economies.

When immigration began to swell to numbers where the revenue was swamped by the outlay needs of the system, this is the point where taxes had to be raised to compensate, as revenues no longer covered the government needs. This is the point where the grumbling started. The reasons for that grumbling to get louder are many, but this was one of the main starters. My wife, a German social worker who always votes left, nevertheless got angry and frustrated when some immigrants came in, refused to work or learn German, fathered 15 (in one of her cases) children, and rented themselves a solo apartment with the extra "child money" the government here automatically gives. The social system in Germany was not designed to accommodate people like that, and balance the budget at the same time.

[WarGamer]

12. makes perfect sense... thx for the input from the middle of it all!

[DFW]

13. Not just me

My wife was a social worker in Germany all her professional life. Her specialty was working with long term, difficult cases of unemployment, trying to train (or retrain) them to the point where they could rejoin the workforce. This included everyone from hard case alcoholics to recent immigrants. There were all flavors, the ones who wanted to work, as well as the ones who only went to her service because their continued welfare payments would stop if they didn't.

The most frustrating were the immigrants who were looking to collect welfare and never have to get a job. These included ones like the Lebanese guy who got in, fathered 15 children, and used the child money to pay for his own apartment and stick his wife and all the kids in the apartment next door. Her agency even tried to cut off the payments. It went to court, and she lost. The judge said "tolerance" was needed. This kind of "tolerance" delights the far right. It gives them the ammunition they need to show why they are "needed."

Like Fox "News," they point to one bad apple in the barrel, and says they are all alike. The Germans are willing to help out. There would have been one hell of an uprising after an influx on 1 million Syrians if they weren't. But that willingness stops at the point where someone comes in, mooches off their tax money to the point where they live better than the Germans paying the taxes. They are few, but as long as the legal system refuses to expel them, and instead rewards their sleaze, the far right will have fuel for its cause, where none is deserved.

[Klaralven]

9. The greater the fraction of economy controlled by the state,

the greater will be inter-group political competition.

[NickB79]

6. Mass immigration of refugees fuels right-wing nationalism

And my fear is that, as climate change causes millions to flee north, it will create a surge in nationalist and outright fascist governments in response.

[Bettie]

10. Just like here

racism and xenophobia.

[MFM008]

8. bastards are all emboldended

by the success of the CON- they come oozing out of the woodwork.
If normal people dont get pissed off and start voting or getting active they win.