The French Socialists used to enjoy widespread support among trendy urbanites while relying on their Communist partners to secure the backing of working-class areas.
Today the National Front has replaced the Communists as the party of choice for French workers, and Emmanuel Macron, a 39-year-old independent, has taken chunks out of the Socialists’ support among the left-wing urban young.
The Socialist Party, which in 2012 controlled every level of government, is close to becoming a political irrelevance. It has lost power in local government and is likely to do so too in parliamentary elections, and the presidential poll on April 23.
In 1988 François Mitterrand, the Socialist presidential candidate, won 41 per cent of the working-class vote. In local elections in 2015, a mere 6.5 per cent of working-class people voted for the Socialists. That will probably be even lower this year.
Many voters have been lured away by Marine Le Pen, who is running on a programme of state intervention in the economy, protectionism, curbs on immigration and a return to the franc in place of the euro. In 2015 the National Front won 22.6 per cent of the working-class vote and was backed by more than two in five voters in areas where the jobless rate exceeded 14 per cent, and one in five where the rate was less than 9 per cent. It is expected to do better this year.
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Left-leaning urbanites backed social reforms introduced by President Hollande, like the legalisation of same-sex marriages. Now they are flocking to Mr Macron, whose recent campaign rally in Paris attracted 10,000 people.