“As in the United States, polarization is at work in France, fueled by the feeling of relegation of working-class circles and downgrading of the middle classes”

Dn the surrounding political hubbub, it happens that historical events render one silent or almost silent. Taken together, the reactions in France to the election of Donald Trump appear both poor and conventional.

The far right contained its joy, aware beyond real affinities that there was some risk in promoting such a sulphurous character at a time when the affirmation of “America first” risked seriously complicating the defense of the tricolor cockade. The left exposed its divisions, La France insoumise putting the defeat of the democratic camp down to a lack of radicalism, unlike the social democrats who preferred, like Anne Hidalgo, to attack to the deterioration of public debate, « [aux] fake news, [à] violence, [aux] injures, [à] the permanent questioning of the rule of law ». The right, almost silent on the event, has stepped up its security offensive, with the Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau, serving as a bridgehead in the fight against drug trafficking made a national issue.

The loudest voice paradoxically came from the ranks of a camp known to be moderate: the center. In an interview with Parisian, Sunday November 10, the Minister of Foreign Affairs from the MoDem, Jean-Noël Barrot, denounced “decades of elite blindness to the upheavals of the world, their denial of the legitimate exasperation of the middle classes tired of feeling discredited and dispossessed”. The heart of the problem is there, but how can we respond to it?

The election of Donald Trump is an earthquake. The character had everything to disqualify himself: delusional, liar, xenophobic, pursued by the courts, threatening democracy. Four years after initiating the march of his supporters on the Capitol in Washington on January 6, 2021, the billionaire won the popular vote, controlled the House of Representatives, the Senate, the Supreme Court and locked down the Republican Party. From an “accident of history”, he became the midwife of Trumpism, a conservatism combining economic liberalism and isolationism, a populism combining well-understood defense of the interests of billionaires and radical disengagement aimed in particular at the intellectual elites, a virilism making the praise of strength in a world increasingly dominated by it.

Legal battles

Placed on a national scale, Donald Trump's electoral performance corresponds to the dream that Eric Zemmour cherished during the 2022 presidential campaign: to unite at the polls the patriotic anti-tax bourgeoisie and the working classes in rebellion against the system. Where the founder of Reconquest! had finished his race with 7% of the votes cast, Donald Trump achieved the grand slam without obtaining an electoral tidal wave, but by consolidating and expanding his electoral base after four years of opposition dominated by his legal battles.

You have 52.72% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.