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Spotlight on France

What is driving the National Front vote?

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There is less than a week to the run-off vote in France's presidential election between the centrist Emmanuel Macron and the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen of the FN, the National Front.

Marine Le Pen, French National Front (FN) political party leader and candidate for French 2017 presidential election, speaks during a campaign rally in Nice, France, April 27, 2017.
Marine Le Pen, French National Front (FN) political party leader and candidate for French 2017 presidential election, speaks during a campaign rally in Nice, France, April 27, 2017. REUTERS/Eric Gaillard
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Her party has spent years outside mainstream political life in France, but she finished second in the first round vote last week, ahead of the main right-wing candidate and in front of candidates from the Socialist Party and the far left. But who is supporting her?

At the headquarters of the far-right leader Marine Le Pen, in Hénin-Beaumont in the north of France, her followers were celebrating on April 23.

Her second-place in the first round of the presidential election put her in the run-off on May 7 against the centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron.

"First of all, we're happy to see that people have woken up, they've finally understood that we needed change, that both the traditional Right and the Left cannot solve anything, and Marine, in her speech, really speaks about the people, and not about finance, or other abstract things," Amandine told RFI.

"She talks about concrete things that can be put in place, that will change not only the French economy but also France's purchasing power. Everything she wants to set in motion is doable, nothing she proposes seems impossible, so something can be done, it's that simple."

Marine's closest supporters believe in her victory, and say nothing can stop them now. 

"The presidential election in France is not about political parties, it's about personnality. And let me tell you something: when you hear the words "Macron - President", it's an oxymoron, it just doesn't work," said Mikael Sala, the Front National campaign strategist.

"Macron could run for maybe being the president of Facebook, or Snapchat. But we're talking about a country. And the only personnality that has the charisma, that has the authority to lead France in the complicated world that we live in is Marine Le Pen."

Sala said the French knew that only Le Pen could lead France.

"Can you imagine Marine Le Pen speaking with Donald Trump? Of course! They're on the same level. Marine Le Pen's met Vladimir Putin in Moscow, and he treated her like an equal. You know what?

"The reason why she will win is because she is the only statesman in this election, and actually she's a stateswoman. And Macron is nowhere near that. Maybe in twenty years, when he's a grown-up, then he can compete, but today let me tell you, he's out of his league. She's the one."

Not enough?

But, some analysts believe that these results were not exactly what the National Front was hoping for.

"Her strategy of normalisation has suceeded, but has not succeeded to the extent that she would have liked to, and you can feel in the Front National voters that they are very disappointed, because a lot of the polls before the election were saying that she was probably going to be the first frontrunner and that Macron would be the second, but it didn't happen that way" explained political analyst Alexandra de Hoop Scheffer, from the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

"And this also tells you a lot about the limits of her strategy and her political position. She felt more and more insecure in the last phase of the presidential campaign, she went back to her father's historical discourse, a very dividing one on the Shoah (the Holocaust) and all of these nazi connotations that have probably repulsed a few of the people who might have voted for her."

De Hoop Scheffer thinks Le Pen is not in such good of a position and said once she will be debating, concretely, with Macron about policies, economic policies, social policies, immigration policies, but even more so about France's role in Europe, in the world, then "voters will certainly see that her model, her vision for France and on the international scene is just not a vision that people would want."

According to exit polls, Le Pen gathered a lot of votes from young people. She has fought hard to distance herself - and her image - from her controversial father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the former head of the National Front, who is still considered openly racist and anti-Semitic.

But today, some among the young generation feel Marine is the only one reaching out and listening to them.

So what if the party is accused of extremism? Some argue that is all in the past.

"We're not extremists - look at me, I'm a CEO, I'm 30, I've owned my company for six years, I've started working at 16, do I look like an extremist? No," said Raphaël at the Hénin-Beaumont HQ.

"I'm a patriot, I love France, I love the colours. I love my country. And I want my country to stay the same. Right now, there are too many people going abroad because there are too many taxes.

"And the others come before the French people, and we need to get back to "US before OTHERS" and that's speaking of immigration, but for our companies as well. We need to think about our unemployment level. Who thinks about the 6 million unemployed? No body, only Marine does."

Plight of young people

Economic frustration has driven young people from their traditional affiliation with the left to Le Pen's far-right party; youth unemployment continues to hover at around 25 per cent in France.

In one department in Burgundy, Yonne, Marine Le Pen topped the poll comfortably at almost thirty percent of the votes - the traditional Right-wing candidate Francois Fillon trailed far behind in second place with almost twenty percent.

Yonne is considered to be typical of what Marine calls "forgotten France."

"The 'forgotten France' is a concept Marine Le Pen developed a few years back.It's a more rural France, a peripheral France. It's the part of France that brought Marine her victory in the first round," Julien Odoul, the head of the National Front in the area, told RFI at a fair in Sens, a commune of Yonne.

"This is the France that has been abandoned for decades by our elites. It's a France that is not asking for anything but respect, but which we keep forcing to make huge sacrifices.

"Public services are disappearing, schools, post offices, police stations are closing. This leaves people feeling vulnerable. And most of all, we see how unfairly the government treats us, how it favours the suburbs, foreign countries even, when all we want is respect and to be treated equally.

For Odoul, the choice is clear for the French on May 7.

"This second round is a referundum: either you're for France or you are against it. Either you agree with savage globalisation or not. And even if voters don't like everything about Marine Le Pen's manifesto, it's still the only solution if we're to avoid the catastrophy of a Macron victory," Odoul said.

"Because with Emmanuel Macron, not only will it be more of this uncontrolled globalisation, but it will be the powerful, and the richest who will rule France.

"But we're also talking about injustice, and massive immigration - more and more migrants will come to our towns, then we'll see our identity diluted, and of course, a greater threat of terrorism: Emmanuel Macron has said this is something we have to get used to. So clearly the choice here is between our nation versus uncontrolled globalisation."

Victor Deschamps is a 17 year-old high school student who is a National Front supporter.

He sees the difficulties young French people have and since he cannot vote, he wants to contribute somehow to limit what he called 'the damages of the next five years'.

"Some of the measures taken during the past five years were not good enough. But there was also minimal attention given to all sorts of levels - such as security and employment. My family has been hit by unemployment. We are looking for jobs, but we simply can't find any," Victor said whilst campaigning alongside Julien Odoul in Sens.

"Nothing is done, no concrete decision is taken to help us out. Then, when you look at the youth, because of the communities of towns, we have less and less resources, I can see it here, at my highschool in Sens, we lack funding, I have friends in regions where they have more money, and they have way more resources when it comes to education.

"And Marine is making our nation a priority, Mr. Macron, he's all about the World, Mrs Le Pen, she's all about France, she stands up for the French, and she will do things for the French, the French before the others"

The watchword among the youth here is change.

Clément, who is 19, voted for far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon during the first round.

For the second one, he says he will put a blank ballot paper in the box, because neither of the two candidates appeals to him. But, if forced to choose between Macron and Le Pen, he says he'd vote for Marine.

"One of the arguments that would make me vote for her is the fact that we would have a right to choose whether we want to remain in Europe or leave it.

"I think it's really important - more and more people are fed up with this european system and we see it with the English people. They, at least, had - how to say this - the balls to do it. The French? We're too quiet. We don't like to speak up. We like to remain mute. But maybe it's time we spoke up for ourselves..."

Young people like Clement are disenchanted and want change. They say promises made to them, promises of a better and brighter future were not respected by previous governments.

So they believe that maybe, what France needs today is a political earthquake. And that, they say, is exactly what Marine Le Pen would be.

 

 

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