French Election: Young AltRight Making Waves

BBC ^ | 4/6/17 | Henri Astier

[ek_hornbeck]

France, despite its reputation as a beacon of progressive liberalism, has been at the forefront of a burgeoning pan-European far-right movement.

Marine Le Pen, an anti-immigration Eurosceptic who may well top the first round of France's presidential election on 23 April, is riding a populist insurgency that has been growing over the past 15 years.

Its themes are familiar in the era of Donald Trump and Brexit: concern for hardworking people, support for traditional values, and opposition to immigration and supranational busybodies.

[ek_hornbeck]

The article's title is dishonest, in that it labels all French Nationalist supporters of LePen and opponents of African/Middle Eastern immigration "alt-right." Most of LePen's base of support don't identify as such and probably don't even care about the "alt-right" as we know it here.

The good news in the article is that while our college youth have degenerated into the realm of safe spaces and fighting microaggression on college campuses, the young generation of other countries is getting fed up with globalization and multiculturalism. If older voters put Trump over the top here, it's the younger voters who will put LePen over the top in France.

[Gay State Conservative]

The European press,in general,and the BBC,in particular,toss around terms like “alt right” and “far right” like chimps fling their feces.

[ek_hornbeck]

True, but they’re hardly any worse in that regard than most of our media. As far as they’re concerned, anyone who is less than enthusiastic about world government or mass third world immigration is a dreaded “alt-righter”

[PGR88]

France, despite its reputation as a beacon of progressive liberalism,

The so-called "alt-right" are the only liberals left. Everyone else in the political spectrum are Leftist/statists/fascists or paid-for, insider, crony-capitalists working with the former.

[Petrosius]

Below is a list of the articles in which the MSM have referred to the “far-left”:

[Opinionated Blowhard]

You see the media doing this more and more. They take a populist movement and label it “Alt Right”. A lot of these supporters aren’t conservative. They don’t want limited government. In fact, they may want expanded government. I’m not saying that in a critical way — that’s their business. But the press, partially out of laziness and partially out of being blinded by ideology, sees an ignorant, racist mob egged on by billionaire limited government Capitalists. The press is missing the story of the realignment of politics and the emergence of a nationalist, populist voting block.

[pepsionice]

Using the BBC ID of alt-right....Lincoln probably would have been extreme alt-right.

[FlagNCountry]

Will be interesting to see how the elections play out. Potentially this could mean the end of the EU, if LePen wins.

[ek_hornbeck]

In addition to its social democrats ("Center Left"), France has a couple of candidates running in parties that are Communist in everything but name and polling at close to 10%. Once in a rare while they're referred to as "Far Left," but the term is used as a neutral description rather than as a term of attack.

[Krosan]

How big is this alt-right anyway? I have gotten an idea that we are talking about few hundred thousand max.