France’s National Rally has sought to style itself a defender of women’s rights — partly by attacking its traditional bogeyman: immigration.

France’s National Rally has sought to style itself a defender of women’s rights — partly by attacking its traditional bogeyman: immigration.

Europe’s far-right voters have long been predominantly men, but French women are now bucking that trend ahead of a high-stakes election that could usher in France’s first far-right government in recent history.

Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigration National Rally is tipped to win the most votes in a two-round snap election on June 30 and July 7 that could crush the liberal centrists of President Emmanuel Macron, and women are increasingly driving her party’s surging political fortunes as it seeks to position itself in the mainstream.

On EU election day this month, the National Rally came first with a stunning 31 percent of the French vote, up from 23 percent in the 2019 EU election.

The most eye-catching aspect of this swing to the far right concerned women voters, according to an election-day poll that OpinionWay carried out for the Les Echos newspaper.

  • SynapseEnglish
    59•5 months ago

    It is very sad to see. RN party really doesn’t carry any values that are favorable to women in any way. They are very much fighting for blocking access to birth control and sex education. They have voted against proposal aiming to improve parity and reduce wage gapes.

    • Zos_KiaEnglish
      1•5 months ago

      Feels like i need to clarify a few things here.

      • the anti-american sentiment is not an arab thing. It’s as French as frogs legs (doesn’t make it ok).
      • the arabs who bullied you in grade school are not immigrants. Their grandparents immigrated in the 60s, but those kids were born in a French hospital with a French passport. Same goes with black people 99% of them were born in France or in one of our overseas colonies.
      • the people who are mysoginistic and homophobic are generally not the immigrants. Again, it’s a marked thing mostly with 2nd/3rd gen. It’s a thing in all religions worldwide, they are all veering towards hardcore conservatism especially among young people. I am not qualified to explain why that is but it’s shit.

      So essentially, i fail to see the point in “locking that shit down”. You close the border tomorrow you don’t solve any of the issues that are bothering racist people today. They will still have a radical mosque in their neighborhood and Mohammed will continue bullying the little american kid at school (doesn’t make it ok).

      You want some real talk about immigration ? 1 immigrant out of 3 is European. 1 out of 3 has a university diploma. In fact, migrants on average are slightly more educated, and have slightly higher income than native French. You close the border tomorrow that’s who you are barring from the country. As usual with fascist policies - it’s all damned lies.

        • Zos_KiaEnglish
          1•5 months ago

          Oh i didn’t mean to correct your experience but rather the political take you extracted from it. Your personal experience in grade school doesn’t represent a systemic problem. The population we’re talking about here (north african young immigrants fresh off the boat who need remedial linguistic classes) is, what, a few thousand people a year ? You don’t close a country’s borders just because you can’t handle a few thousand unruly adolescents.

          My other point is that, while religious conservatism is a real danger to modern society, it is not driven by immigrants who have few resources and are primarily motivated by their own survival. It is driven by well established people who already have the French nationality and are comfortable enough to afford being “rebels” to the system. It’s also not specific to islam - have you seen what Christians are up to these days ? Have you seen what Jews are up to ? Current news seem to indicate that the Abrahamic-minded are not taking kindly to the 3rd Millenium.

          Also as a side note. 1 in 3 is not good enough. Most people are risk adverse, give them 33% odds of something positive and they’ll tell you to shove it.

          That wasn’t my point. My point is that the majority of immigrants come for study or work and they integrate with no issues.

          The people the RN accuses of not integrating are French people with French passports and it is their fucking god-given right to not “integrate” with the culture around them. I was a nerdy vegan kid in a village of rugby players, hunters and delicatessen producers. I never fit in with that peasant culture - should my nationality be put into question ? No ? Then why is the standard different when it’s a kid from arab descent ?

          They are French citizens they don’t owe any allegiance to any ideology or way of life and that’s one of the pillars upon which this country was built. They wake up and go to work like me, they pay taxes like me, when they’re caught speeding they get a ticket like me. They bring their kids to the same school where i bring mine. They complain about trains being late and the administration being incompetent. Let’s leave them the fuck alone alright ? We’re living together just fine.

    • @sandbox@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0•5 months ago

      i’m sorry, but I can’t bring myself to care about anti-american “racism” in europe. it might do the world some good tbh

            • @sandbox@lemmy.worldEnglish
              0•5 months ago

              Mate, you got bullied ONCE, and then decided that meant “Immigration is an issue in France.”

              You are using something minorly shitty that happened as justification for an extremist policy position.

              And you’re calling me foolish.

                • @sandbox@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  1•5 months ago

                  The United States supports genocide and colonialism around the world relentlessly, and acts like it’s a crime against humanity when there is even the slightest pushback, even though they have never been held to account for any of their own crimes against humanity. I’m sorry if awareness of that fact caused you distress, it wasn’t my intention.

    • Wild BillEnglish
      -2•5 months ago

      This is the entire reason for the European right-wing wave. Some like to pretend Europeans suddenly became racist as fuck, but look at the integration issues. Sweden is a shithole now, just like France, because of this. No doubt right-wing policies are extremist, but thank the lord they opened (some) people’s eyes to the problematic nature of mass immigration.

      • Zos_KiaEnglish
        5•5 months ago

        I’m curious to know by which metric France has “become a shithole”, and how that is related to immigration ?

  • RubberDuckEnglish
    42•5 months ago

    Anti migrant sentiment among women is probably helped by the news of the rapes. Just this week the 12 year old was raped by other minors for being Jewish.

      • SynapseEnglish
        21•5 months ago

        First-hand reports did not make mention of the origins of the perpetrators, only that they are of similar age (12 and 13yo) and one of them the ex-boyfriend of the victim. Very horrible, no question. But, is immigration relevant to this case ? Isn’t it more relevant to question why education of teenagers has failed so bad ? Why are racial and faith related aggression still a thing in a laïc state ? Why nothing concrete is being done to protect women ? Let’s avoid the essay short-cuts, and instead talk about the real root-causes.

  • @lennybird@lemmy.worldEnglish
    12•5 months ago

    Ah so put the people who routinely cause regional instability from Syria to Ukraine and deny climate change back… Surely this will help with immigration! lol.