Gavin Mortimer on peripheral France

Journalist Gavin Mortimer writes in The Spectator about the ideological chasm that has formed between Paris and the French provinces:

“I no longer live in Paris. Last year I moved to the countryside, to a quiet corner of Burgundy. It's only an hour's drive from Paris, so it's still not deep France; rather, it is France Peripheral (La France Périphérique), a term coined by Christophe Gillouy in his 2014 book of the same name. He described this France as the home of the white working class, many of whom had moved there from the cities. Few of them took this step of their own free will; but many were forced to do so because they could no longer afford to live in a “globalized and gentrified” city. This gave rise to their dissatisfaction with the elites, who, as Gillouy says, “still have not realized the ideological and cultural chasm that separates them from the most ordinary representatives of the people.”

Does Gabriel Attal (the new prime minister in the government of Emmanuel Macron - Polit.ru) understand the depth of this abyss? Some mayors of provincial cities fear that this is unlikely. In response to the new government appointment, they published an open letter in which they said that “the province is the beating heart of France.” They then asked the question: “Who in government today can understand our problems?” They fear that no one is, because they are “thoroughly Parisian and have little interest in France as a whole with all its diversity, especially in a geographical sense, so they leave us again with a feeling of abandonment and abandonment.”

This feeling of abandonment is not made up. This is precisely the main reason why Marine Le Pen’s National Front is so popular in the provinces; Marine Le Pen represents the self-proclaimed leader of the “common people.” Last week, an opinion poll showed that he has the trust of 39% of the population as the most famous political figure in France; in second place is Jordan Bardella - 35%; and Macron's approval rating is only 24%, which is incredibly low. Le Pen's party is also well on its way to winning the European Parliament elections in June, with a 10% lead over its main rival, Macron's Renaissance party.