France’s National Rally has sought to style itself a defender of women’s rights — partly by attacking its traditional bogeyman: immigration.
Europe’s far-right voters have long been predominantly men, but French women are now bucking that trend ahead of a high-stakes election that could usher in France’s first far-right government in recent history.
Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigration National Rally is tipped to win the most votes in a two-round snap election on June 30 and July 7 that could crush the liberal centrists of President Emmanuel Macron, and women are increasingly driving her party’s surging political fortunes as it seeks to position itself in the mainstream.
On EU election day this month, the National Rally came first with a stunning 31 percent of the French vote, up from 23 percent in the 2019 EU election.
The most eye-catching aspect of this swing to the far right concerned women voters, according to an election-day poll that OpinionWay carried out for the Les Echos newspaper.
I’m a white American that lived in France for 7 years in grade school. It’s the only time I’ve experienced racism. I know that sounds ridiculous as a white man, but I was relentlessly targeted by North African immigrants for no other reason than being American. Immigration is an issue in France. People are coming but they are not integrating. They don’t follow the laws, they don’t view women as equals, they hate LGBT, they hate western ideals. So, as an American who believes immigration is a good thing in the States - I understand why the French want to lock that shit down.
Feels like i need to clarify a few things here.
So essentially, i fail to see the point in “locking that shit down”. You close the border tomorrow you don’t solve any of the issues that are bothering racist people today. They will still have a radical mosque in their neighborhood and Mohammed will continue bullying the little american kid at school (doesn’t make it ok).
You want some real talk about immigration ? 1 immigrant out of 3 is European. 1 out of 3 has a university diploma. In fact, migrants on average are slightly more educated, and have slightly higher income than native French. You close the border tomorrow that’s who you are barring from the country. As usual with fascist policies - it’s all damned lies.
I’m not trying to perpetuate “Arab bad”. And my experience is anecdotal but that doesn’t mean you can correct - it was still very much real.
Also as a side note. 1 in 3 is not good enough. Most people are risk adverse, give them 33% odds of something positive and they’ll tell you to shove it.
deleted by creator
Oh i didn’t mean to correct your experience but rather the political take you extracted from it. Your personal experience in grade school doesn’t represent a systemic problem. The population we’re talking about here (north african young immigrants fresh off the boat who need remedial linguistic classes) is, what, a few thousand people a year ? You don’t close a country’s borders just because you can’t handle a few thousand unruly adolescents.
My other point is that, while religious conservatism is a real danger to modern society, it is not driven by immigrants who have few resources and are primarily motivated by their own survival. It is driven by well established people who already have the French nationality and are comfortable enough to afford being “rebels” to the system. It’s also not specific to islam - have you seen what Christians are up to these days ? Have you seen what Jews are up to ? Current news seem to indicate that the Abrahamic-minded are not taking kindly to the 3rd Millenium.
That wasn’t my point. My point is that the majority of immigrants come for study or work and they integrate with no issues.
The people the RN accuses of not integrating are French people with French passports and it is their fucking god-given right to not “integrate” with the culture around them. I was a nerdy vegan kid in a village of rugby players, hunters and delicatessen producers. I never fit in with that peasant culture - should my nationality be put into question ? No ? Then why is the standard different when it’s a kid from arab descent ?
They are French citizens they don’t owe any allegiance to any ideology or way of life and that’s one of the pillars upon which this country was built. They wake up and go to work like me, they pay taxes like me, when they’re caught speeding they get a ticket like me. They bring their kids to the same school where i bring mine. They complain about trains being late and the administration being incompetent. Let’s leave them the fuck alone alright ? We’re living together just fine.
i’m sorry, but I can’t bring myself to care about anti-american “racism” in europe. it might do the world some good tbh
If you strip it down to its basics. It was kids bullying a kid. If that’s not something to care about, you might be an asshole.
that’s something you deal with on a case-by-case basis, not systemically.
I’m not talking about the system. I’m talking about something I experienced. I’d recommend sitting down before you continue looking foolish.
Mate, you got bullied ONCE, and then decided that meant “Immigration is an issue in France.”
You are using something minorly shitty that happened as justification for an extremist policy position.
And you’re calling me foolish.
How is it you know how many times I experienced being bullied exactly?
I didn’t realize racism and bullying were “minorly shitty”. To people that aren’t jerks, these are real problems.
And no, I never said anything other than “I understand why France would want to lock that shit down.” Not that I agree with the alt-right, not that North African people are inherently bad, not that only North Africans could treat people this way. I was very clear I knew my story to be anecdotal.
Yes, you’re a fool on a fool’s tirad to make some point no one was arguing against. Must I remind you that you started this conversation by saying you wished for more American-oriented racism in the world. Have a nice day!
The United States supports genocide and colonialism around the world relentlessly, and acts like it’s a crime against humanity when there is even the slightest pushback, even though they have never been held to account for any of their own crimes against humanity. I’m sorry if awareness of that fact caused you distress, it wasn’t my intention.
This is the entire reason for the European right-wing wave. Some like to pretend Europeans suddenly became racist as fuck, but look at the integration issues. Sweden is a shithole now, just like France, because of this. No doubt right-wing policies are extremist, but thank the lord they opened (some) people’s eyes to the problematic nature of mass immigration.
I’m curious to know by which metric France has “become a shithole”, and how that is related to immigration ?
Camp fire for the saints…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Camp_of_the_Saints
Edit: to point out that the comment demonstrating the worst parts of that book has 50 upvotes.
While my pointing that out has negative downvotes.
Then a later comment of mine mentioning how fucked up that mindset is… was upvoted… just like the original comment acting out that mindset…
What a horrid book
A horrid mindset.