Boris Johnson has received congratulations from virtually all world leaders. However, some have noticed that the PM received only a lukewarm reaction from Emmanuel Macron to his stonking election victory last month. However, the reaction from Marine Le Pen could not have been more different in tone. She tweeted “the crushing victory of Boris Johnson shows that neither maneuvering nor intimidation can sway a people who have decided to take their destiny in their own hands.”
Whilst both can be described as Eurosceptics Mr. Johnson and Ms. Le Pen have little in common. Le Pen’s keenness to nationalise banks is more in line with Jeremy Corbyn. However, some such as Gavin Mortimer from the Spectator has stated that the “triumph of the Conservative leader has been a tremendous fillip for her”. Following a far from a prominent couple of years, Ms. Le Pen has vowed to contest the 2022 election. Her announcement read “I’m ready to do the job, the job that Emmanuel Macron isn’t doing. The reality is that we’ve had a lot of big promises, a lot of hopes for a lot of French people that things would change. But we have once more a veritable social and economic cataclysm”.
2019 in France saw a year of strikes, riots and an underperforming economy. Could this be ripe ground for Ms. Le Pen to run on? It is certainly not the future envisioned by Macron when he promised his delirious supporters at the Palais du Louvre that he would restore France’s grandeur. Le Pen is supporting the striking railway workers who are now in their fifth week of protest. Many feel her best chance of winning power is to replicate Mr. Johnson’s tactics and win over left-leaning blue-collar workers and persuade them to lend her their vote. This may be eminently possible, a poll in November that found that 63 per cent of people who voted for the far-left France Insoumise in 2019’s European elections would back Le Pen before Macron in a presidential run-off in 2022.
These working-class voters are likely to differ little in outlook from the Brits in Blyth Valley and Bolsover who voted tory for the first time last month. They are likely to seek a politician who talks to them, not past them. Whilst it is difficult to say that Le Pen hasn’t the PM’s charisma but her plain-speaking patriotism is likely to resonate with the French working-class. Whether Macron takes Le Pen seriously is another matter, but he would be unwise following on from both Brexit and Trump to rest on his laurels.
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Current Affairs Correspondent | My name is Oliver Down I am 22, and a staunch brexiteer. I am a Bristolian lad who studied politics in Leicester. I believe in free speech and accurate journalism and I won’t be afraid to give you “the other side” of the story!
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