Monday, October 14, 2013

Question: is the French 'mainstream' actually baffled, or

just doesn't want to talk about the 800-pound gorilla in the room?
France's mainstream political parties were Monday scratching their heads over what to do about a surge by the Front National (FN) after a breakthrough by-election win for the far-right party.
I think there's a hint in the article, though they won't say it outright:
The southeastern town has struggled with high unemployment since the closure of local aluminium mines in the 1990s and the gloomy economic backdrop has exacerbated tensions between established residents and a large community of North African immigrants, creating fertile ground for the FN in a region where it traditionally does better than elsewhere in France.
Read 'muslim immigrants' to be accurate.  Like the 'disaffected North African youths' that have weekend carbeques as regular events in major cities.

I can't find it right now, but a year or so ago there was a video released in France, lots of people basically saying "We're France, and we're sick of what's being done to us."  I think this is a continuation of that, and same thing as the push for a third party here: "If you bastards are going to ignore and abuse us, we'll do something about it."

Liable to get interesting, isn't it?



1 comment:

Thud said...

I hope it gets very interesting.