Europeans 2024. In the Channel, the National Rally has established itself over time

In the first minutes of the counting, this Sunday June 9, 2024 in Saint-Lô (Manche), Franck Simon understood.

He who, for several weeks, said he did not trust surveys of these European elections, which generally placed higher the frontist candidates as demonstrated, ultimately, by the reality of the ballot boxes.

We immediately saw that we were going on a historic evening.

“Political boomerang”

The RN has long obtained scores in the Channel below the national results. In 2002in a department which had only given Jean-Marie Le Pen 13% of his votes, the youthtook to the streets, proclaiming “fuck the F-Hate”… A little over twenty years later, no one took to the streets when the heiress of Jean-Marie Le Pen made electoral breakthroughs.

And, in certain markets Manchois, the activists of the National Rally say they met young people who wanted a leaflet by Jordan Bardella, the same way you cut out a poster of an idol from a magazine, or give a “like” on Instagram.

A political boomerang is coming. This is unheard of for someone like me who has been an activist for 25 years.

Some divisions And social fractures have grown in the country. THE purchasing power took a hit and the faces that embody the far-right party (even if he claims to no longer be) have changed.

“Subjects on which we are expected”

So the Frontist party appeared to a fringe of voters as an acceptable alternative, which deserved at least to be tried, “lost for lost”.

The hand no longer trembles at the ballot box, when choosing a party which claims, big media reinforcementsto have “normalized”.

The European issues are there and important, of course. But it is above all the national situation that they concern us with. Purchasing power, insecurity… These are subjects on which we are expected. There is, among the middle classes, a feeling of being downgraded. It is also reflected in this ballot.

In the Channel, the RN claims approximately 200 activists up to date with contributions“fairly” distributed across the territory.

Anger, and more only

26% in 201423% in 2019 and more than 30% in 2024. Of course, we can say that the European ballot appears, wrongly and among some voters, as an election where anger can be expressed at little cost. That doesn’t explain everything. Fifteen years ago, the party was already prospering on the disappointments of others, but only made 6% of the European elections in the department.

Above all, it would be forgetting that Marine Le Pen made 40% in the department during the second round of the last presidential election. Ten points more than five years earlier. Above all, in 2022the candidate won 119 municipalities in the department, where, five years earlier, she had only won 39.

Often, rural communities who previously voted for the Republicans, who were increasingly eroded by its center and its own right during national elections. This is a fundamental trend. Those which, by dint of settling into the landscape, no longer alert many people. The principle has a name: trivialization.

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