Much Ado About Le Pen?

April 24 2017 - Francois Bonnet.

Emmanuel Macron has emerged as the frontrunner in the first round of elections for the French Presidency. Though, the leading story of the night was the success of Marine Le Pen of the National Front Party in securing second place and an opportunity to participate in the run off election with Macron in two weeks time. The French results are being read as part of a wave of populist electoral successes – in what appears to be a radically redrawn political landscape in Europe and North America. In this week’s podcast Francois Bonnet of the CNRS in France joins us to pick through these results arguing that the National Front may have seriously underperformed.