Le Pen’s long game

Marine Le Pen can be excused for thinking her time has come. With six months to go until France’s presidential election, the left-wing government of François Hollande has produced only one winner, and it is her. She’s providing the Gallic contribution to the insurgent charge epitomised elsewhere by Brexit and Donald Trump.

France, the home of joie de vivre, has become an introverted place whose citizens fear their nation has lost its way. It is an existential challenge, in the birthplace of existentialism, that the mainstream right is failing to answer.

Le Pen, on the other hand, says she has all the answers — and, despite the questionable nature of many of her remedies, up to a third of the electorate appears to agree. Her message on the need to protect France’s borders resonates, especially as the Hollande government sets about dispersing the famous ‘Jungle’ camp in Calais, a move which has provoked protests in the towns to which the refugees are being bused. And her calls to step up the fight against Islamic fundamentalism, erect protectionist trade barriers and hold a referendum on France’s membership of the European Union also chime with the mood of the times.

Agnes Poirier and Gavin Mortimer discuss Marine Le Pen’s prospects

Security, in all its forms, dominates popular thinking in France these days after the string of terrorist attacks over the past 20 months, which have been accompanied by a flatlining economy and growing social unrest. Indeed, polls show la sécurité is becoming more important in the public mind than the long record of high unemployment. The governing class has lost its sheen; Hollande’s ‘war on terror’ has not convinced the nation, which awaits the next attack.

In business terms, too, France has lost its self-confidence.