There’s no getting away from the racist dimension of the far-right vote

He argued that no-one has done more than him to push back the far right, claiming he spoke to BNP supporters and offered them a protest vote without the racist agenda.

This, to me, perfectly sums up the far-right project in France under Marine Le Pen’s National Rally. You won’t hear her or her senior leadership say anything overtly racist. She has rebranded her party to appear respectable, even changing its name to distance it from the controversial past under her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen. But we shouldn’t be fooled. It’s the same racist ideas and the same policies.

No matter how much they try to whitewash their agenda, every stone you turn reveals something racist. I’ve lost count of how many National Rally candidates have been found to have said or shared antisemitic, racist or Islamophobic things. It’s the same with Reform in the UK. But it’s difficult to ignore when a majority of National Rally voters are comfortable admitting they’re either a bit racist or completely racist. Most also consider that French people who are also Muslim are not really French.

Some politicians and commentators would like to ignore the racist dimension of the far right vote, pretending it’s solely about protesting the degradation of public services and the general decline in quality of life. But the truth is, you can’t escape the racist dimension of the far right vote.

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Issoudun, my hometown, illustrates this very well. It is a picturesque place nestled in the heart of France.

I have fond memories of my childhood in this working-class town. The schoolteachers were amazing, fostering a love for learning and a sense of belonging.

However, my childhood was also marred by the racism my family and I endured as Black residents in the early 1990s. The town was not as diverse back then as it is now. I vividly remember the day some schoolkids put dog poo into our letterbox and mocked me, saying my skin was the same colour. I was called the N-word by six-year-olds, who undoubtedly learned it at home.

My first and only fight at school was because a boy kept provoking me with racist slurs until I finally reacted – and I was the one who was punished while he got away with it. In middle school, an art teacher told me off for being upset when a classmate drew a caricature of me with exaggerated, racist features, while other students laughed.

These painful memories of racism weren’t an everyday occurrence, but they were an indelible part of my experience as a minority in Issoudun. Despite this, racism didn’t significantly show there in the ballot box until recently.

In 2012, the National Front barely garnered 12% of the vote. However, in the recent European elections, more than 36% of the town’s residents voted for them. The rise of the far right has been more pronounced locally than nationally, with the party gaining ground at a pace that is both alarming and telling.

While socio-economic factors undeniably play a role in driving people towards far-right parties, it is crucial to acknowledge one does not vote for the National Rally or Reform UK without harbouring some degree of racial and xenophobic prejudice.

Many far-right voters feel disenfranchised and neglected, struggling with job insecurity, inadequate public services, and a general sense of instability. They have often worked hard to achieve a certain status and fear losing it.

Their disillusionment fuels their protest vote, yet the far-right parties they turn to offer simplistic and dangerous scapegoats: immigrants, minorities, and anyone perceived as “other”. This mixture of protest and conservatism is at the heart of the far-right vote.

Issoudun has lost a great deal over the past couple of decades. We used to have a maternity service, a functioning A&E department, a police station, and ample train services. Now, residents struggle to access healthcare and expectant mothers have to go to the next city to give birth. The A&E department until recently had to stop functioning on a 24/7 basis due to the hospital’s struggles.

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Even the local swimming centre, where generations of Issoudun’s children formed fond memories and learned to swim, had to close in February due to skyrocketing energy prices and will only reopen this summer. The council simply could not afford to keep it open.

This erosion of public services has contributed to a sense of abandonment and frustration among residents, who feel their needs are overlooked by the government. There’s a pervasive feeling that things aren’t going in the right direction, that the quality of life isn’t getting better.

Sociologist Felicien Faury, in his book Ordinary Voters: An Investigation On The Normalisation Of The Far Right, explores these dynamics in depth. He describes how many far-right voters are not the most economically disadvantaged, but rather those who occupy a precarious middle ground.

These are people who have stable jobs in non-outsourcable sectors, such as artisans, small business owners, and intermediate professions, often linked to security. They are homeowners who see themselves in a “bad middle” – not the poorest, but in a fragile position marked by uncertainty.

For these voters, the threat is not the immigrant taking their job, but the immigrant perceived as unduly benefiting from social allocations funded by their taxes. There is a widespread belief among them that the state favours ethnic minorities by allowing them entry and providing them with social benefits on par with “true” French citizens.

Faury emphasises that racism is a potent political force that significantly shapes individuals’ political orientations and voting behaviours. For the electorate of the National Rally, racist sentiments are not peripheral but central to their political choices.

This racism provides a framework through which they interpret their socio-economic insecurities and project their fears and frustrations on to marginalised communities.

However, addressing this issue is complex and many politicians and commentators are reluctant to confront it head-on. Some avoid discussing the racist dimension of the far-right vote to avoid offending these voters; others focus on the racism without acknowledging the legitimate socio-economic grievances that also drive these votes.

This one-sided approach is counterproductive. To effectively counter the rise of the far right, a coherent strategy is needed that addresses the racist and xenophobic elements and the socio-economic insecurities. This involves tackling the structural inequalities that persist in our society and challenging the ideological environment that normalises racist discourse.

Concessions to this ideology will not win back voters but will instead reinforce the very sentiments that drive them towards the far right. I truly believe voters are not inherently predisposed to support the far right. It is not too late to engage with them by offering ambitious social and political measures that address their real concerns and diminish the political appeal of racism.

What is direly needed is a long-term commitment to rebuilding trust and offering a vision of social solidarity that includes everyone. At the same time, it is necessary to combat the normalisation of far-right ideologies and to foster a more inclusive and just society.

What I say about the French far right holds true for the UK. We can see Reform seducing more and more voters and there is absolutely no doubt there’s racism and xenophobia involved in that vote.

This is why it’s crucial, to stop the rise of the far right here, that we don’t just criticise them for their extreme, exclusionary rhetoric. It’s also about addressing the material conditions that make lives better and allow people to take back control of their lives.