Numerically speaking, Abstentionists won (and not for the first time!) the European Elections in France.
With 57% of the vote, they should be proud. This was, first and foremost, their vote.
A vote that says, we wash our hands of this mess! Ick! Ick!
Well done, abstentionists!!
But they couldn't have achieved this victory alone.
So take a bow, President Hollande and opposition leader Copé!
Without the French public's profound disgust at your incompetence and dishonesty (or dishonesty and incompetence), voters would not have had the courage to say Merde as massively and as loudly as they did.
Of course it helps to put party hacks in charge of European Affairs. And to stuff lists with candidates who wouldn't be caught dead in Brussels. And to blame Europe for France's problems. And to fight publicly with family (Royal, Trierweiler, Fillon...)
Clearly, if the choice of voting for mainstream parties hadn't been so offensive to so many French voters, they wouldn't have had the despair necessary to take a chance on the new Marianne.
And make no mistake, Marine Le Pen is leaning in.
Her economic policy is just plain silly (but, then, no sillier than Montebourg's).
Bashing Europe and immigrants will not solve the fundamental and devastating crisis of unemployment in France.
But it does voice the anger.
People have lost hope. They have no idea where to turn for solutions. They want to be heard.
The French Left had its heart broken. The French Right had its heart broken.
And this is the result. A vote of despair. A Hail Mary Pass.
There is no mystery here.
Thirty-one parties French voters had to choose from. And ONE FOURTH of French voters chose Marine Le Pen. ONE THIRD of young people under thirty-five years old voted for her.
So put away the old cliches about who votes Far Right in France. It's too many people to be comfortably contained as the "other".
It's France, today. Bigtime.
