Liberalism on the decline in the liberal France
By Vinod Varshney
By Vinod Varshney
Though voters of France have
given their mandate in favour of socialists after keeping them out of power for
17 years, the worrying trend in France is that voters have also extended support
to the ultra-right political party of Le Pen. Not only the poor, uneducated and
unemployed people rallied round this fire spewing ultra-right telegenic lady,
but large number of the educated middle class, owners of small business and
even employees of large corporations have also approved her anti-immigrant and
anti-EU approach. Irony is that the
ultra-rightists have masqueraded their anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant and
anti-Euro Zone stance under the slogans of human rights, secularism and gender
equality. Le Pen calls herself a ‘feminist’ and has the highest following in
the age group of 18-24. The rise of ultra-right sentiments has undoubtedly been
facilitated by the severe economic crisis, which invited harsh austerity measures
and created skyrocketing unemployment.
(This piece was first published in May, 2012 issue of Lokayat)
This is unfortunate if France becomes illiberal. I had been reading about ban on burqa and turban, was that the sign of the emerging illiberalism?
ReplyDelete