WSJ: The sense of economic decline together with rapid immigration is a toxic combination that has turned many voters against established political parties, said Jérémie Gallon, a former French diplomat and head of Europe for consulting firm McLarty Associates. “It’s the same story from smaller English cities to the French countryside to German towns, where many people feel like the traditional elites look down on them or ignore their concerns,” he said.
Bardella and National Rally have tapped into widespread anxiety that France’s Muslim minority, one of the largest in Europe, is encroaching on the secular values of the French Republic, and into a perceived decline of living standards among working-class and middle-class families. In recent years, National Rally has evolved from a fringe protest movement to the country’s largest single party in the National Assembly, France’s lower house of Parliament.
