Meet the London bankers voting for Le Pen

With weeks to go until the French presidential election, the London branch of Marine Le Pen’s Front National are working hard. In the unlikely setting of a room above a pub near Farringdon Station, Le Pen’s supporters meet regularly to discuss their candidate’s chances. Max Bégon-Lours, the organiser of these meetings and vice-chair of the group, is optimistic. For him, the appeal of the far-right candidate is obvious – and he’s far from alone. Some might say that backing a candidate like Le Pen is ironic for a French voter like Bégon-Lours; after all, he is a man who has benefited directly from the system of globalisation that Le Pen likes to deride. As with many French people in the capital, Max moved here to work in London’s banking and services sectors. A tall, well-dressed Parisian man of good bourgeois stock, he attended the École Polytechnique in Paris, one of France’s top universities, and went on to do a Masters at Princeton.