Echoes of Wisconsin vote in French election

David D. Haynes

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

An ocean away, echoes of some of the same political themes that drove Donald Trump to victory in Wisconsin last fall are reverberating across France. Whether those forces can elect the Trump-like Marine Le Pen is another matter. But there’s little doubt that angst over fading economic prospects helped drive Le Pen's campaign.

Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front, is a Euro-skeptic who has vowed to yank the French out of the EU. If that happened, the two-decade-old experiment at European integration likely would end. She finished second in the opening round of voting Sunday behind political neophyte Emmanuel Macron, a centrist and former investment banker who is a strong supporter of the EU. At this point, Macron appears to have a substantial edge over Le Pen. The two meet in the run-off election May 7.

Like Trump, Le Pen has strong support from a working class worried by declining economic prospects.

According to a Wall Street Journal story last week:

“Whether she wins or not, the strength of Ms. Le Pen’s following shows she has built a potent political force in rural and industrial areas to challenge the French establishment in the years ahead.

“France’s blue-collar regions are a major weak point for Mr. Macron and the country’s other mainstream candidates. An April poll by survey firm Elabe found that in the election’s first round, 48% of factory workers would vote for Ms. Le Pen, compared with 16% for Mr. Macron.”

Macron’s home town of Amiens, the Journal reports, has weathered the loss of both a Goodyear Tire & Rubber plant and now a Whirlpool factory. Since France began using the euro in 1999, industrial production has declined by 10% nationwide, the Journal reported.

Trump’s support was strongest in Wisconsin’s rural areas, where economic concerns are chronic. Here’s what the Journal Sentinel’s Craig Gilbert reported in January:

“An examination of 50 years of Wisconsin election returns shows little precedent for the size of his rural landslide.

"But it also shows that large shifts in the rural vote have been a recurring phenomenon.

"The presidential swings in Wisconsin’s smaller counties have been consistently bigger than the swings in the state’s larger counties. ...

" 'They’ve been continually disappointed for economic and other reasons. They have tended to react increasingly strongly against whoever seems to be in power. It is almost like a pendulum gaining force,' Democratic pollster Paul Maslin said of the state’s rural voters."

It seems unlikely that Le Pen will be able to upend French politics in the same way that Trump did — she’s not likely to win — but win or lose, her support in downtrodden rural areas of France likely ensures she has long political future.

On the other hand, isn't that what a lot of pundits were saying about Trump about this time last year? He's not likely to win? As Roger Cohen of The New York Times warns, Macron still has work to do if he wants to win. " The greatest danger to Emmanuel Macron, at once the fresh face of French politics and a familiar product of the French system, is the assumption that his first-round electoral victory makes triumph in the second round inevitable. It is not."

And, like Republicans and Democrats in the United States, the leaders of France's two main political parties — who were shut out of the final election — need to figure out how to appeal to working class white voters who feel left behind by globalization.

David D. Haynes is editorial page editor for the Journal Sentinel. Email dhaynes@jrn.com Twitter: @DavidDHaynes.