ANNE APPLEBAUM says the French Left has learned nothing and forgotten nothing in a piece on the aftermath of the Chirac / Le Pen runoff:
She was speaking, of course, of immigrants in Marseilles. It made me think of a passage in a recent, much-lauded book by Larry Seidentop, Democracy in Europe:
Here we come again upon the pattern which has haunted French history since the Revolution, a pattern in which the political class or elite loses touch with popular opinion, only finally to be called to account by widespread civil unrest, if not revolution.
My worry is this: If people’s fears about immigration, crime, and national identity are not addressed in the next few years of President’s Chirac’s tenure, there may not be “widespread civil unrest,” but there may well be an even larger vote for Le Pen next time around. There is no reason France’s politicians shouldn’t be relieved by Chirac’s triumph—but the events of the past two weeks are no excuse for renewed complacency either.
UPDATE: Reader John Kluge writes:
Its interesting how the European elites first reaction to 9-11 was to scold Americans for not sufficiently examining why people hate them so much. Now these same elites, congratulating themselves over LePen’s defeat, seem incapable of asking why a large percentage of their electorate is willing to vote for someone they believe to be a fascist.