Over de opkomst van Wilders’ vrienden van het Front National

Apparently it’s not the poorest Franco-French workers, unemployed or not, who vote most for the National Front but those who have a job, a small technical diploma (like the CAP – two years – or the “baccalauréat professionnel” – three years) obtained in a vocational school, who live far away from the poorest suburbs but fear losing their social status. When one talks about the “workers” vote, one should always keep in mind the percentage of working-class voters is smaller than the percentage of workers in the overall population, because (legal or “illegal”) foreign blue collar workers constitute a very important part of the manual working class in France (around 50 percent of the six million blue collar workers) and they have no right to vote. That leaves open the question of how would migrants vote, had they the possibility of doing so. I tend to think they would not vote exactly like Franco-French workers, unless the FN really changes its program… The FN is not the “first party in France” nor the “first working class party” in France, despite what journalists and Marine Le Pen have recently said. It does not control any trade union, or any fraction in any trade union, even if it has trade-unionists in its ranks. It does not organize a significant, militant, youth organisation. It does not play any role in the strikes or struggles for better living standards in working-class suburbs. It’s not able for the moment to control whole sections of the territory as French social-democracy and later the Communist party did. So we should obviously be preoccupied by its growing electoral and ideological influence (for example, its electoral results encouraged the “Republican” Right to adopt its agenda on migration laws) but we should not panic or become paralyzed by the FN.

Yves Coleman in Behind the rise of the Front National (Workers’ Liberty)