A friend of mine intends to vote for the National Rally in June’s European Elections. That in itself is nothing unusual – 13.2 million people voted for Marine Le Pen in the 2022 presidential election and 88 of her MPs were then elected to parliament in the legislative elections.
What’s more unusual about my friend is that she is a French Algerian.
She tells me that she is not an exception among her milieu. It’s the lawlessness, she explains, and the indifference of Emmanuel Macron and his government to thugs, extremists and drug dealers, who make life so miserable for the hard-working and law-abiding in the less fashionable districts of French cities.
There is a caveat to her support for the National Rally; she and her Muslim friends would never vote for Marine Le Pen. It’s the family name more than the woman herself. The legacy of Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of the National Rally (or National Front as it originally was), is still toxic.
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