By by Lim Tean
Last night, French President Emmanuel Macron’s Centrist Alliance were trounced in the 1st round of the French Legislative Elections by Marine Le Pen’s National Rally.
Macron called the snap elections after his party was crushed in the elections for the European Parliament in early June by the National Rally.
He was hoping that the French people would reject the far-right National Rally when it came to elections for France’s own national Parliament. His gamble backfired spectacularly, and the National Rally is now within touching distance of governing France after the 2nd round of voting on July 7.
Despite pleas by Macron to the French people to reject the far-right,they have instead rejected him.They are disgusted by the arrogance of his Presidency and how out-of-touch he has been with their daily struggles.
More importantly, they have turned to Marine Le Pen because they are fed up with the waves of migrants who have invaded France. No citizen of any country enjoys having his/her homeland invaded by foreigners and losing jobs to foreigners.
That was also the reason why another far-right leader Giorgio Meloni came to power in Italy.Her party rejects wide-scale immigration.
And in Britain, the Conservatives will be wiped out in the GE on 4 July. One of the main reasons is that their traditional voters are disgusted with their immigration policies and have abandoned them.
Despite Brexit, large waves of immigrants continue to enter Britain. Last year, around 700,000 immigrants arrived. These traditional Conservative voters have defected to the Reform Party led by Nigel Farage, who wants net zero immigration.
The same story is being repeated in Germany. The far-right party AfD(Alternative For Germany), which is led by Alice Weidel, came in second in the European elections and Germans are flocking to this previous outcast party and abandoning Chancellor Scholz’s Social Democrats because once again they are disgusted with the government’s liberal immigration policies. The AfD opposes large-scale immigration.
What is happening in Europe at the moment is a salient reminder to governments all over the World that it is futile to label their rivals as populists, xenophobic, racists and far-right when they themselves do not listen to the concerns of their citizens on immigration. Every citizen wants to preserve their culture and way of life and not lose his/her job to foreigners!
What’s so difficult to understand?