French voters have every right to be angry and confused. Their country has sunk into the economic doldrums and their traditional political leaders do not seem to have a clue what to do about it. In the final decades of the last century, French leaders gave their people a welfare and health system that was the envy of the rest of Europe. Employee entitlements were boosted and the retirement age slashed while the working week was cut. This last policy was designed to increase employment as business recruited more people to do the work that had been done by others. In fact what happened was the complete opposite of what had been intended. Shorter hours reduced productivity. Companies found they could not afford to employ extra workers. They were also losing skilled employees who were retiring early while they were being forced to payer higher taxes and pensions contributions. Instead of growing the workforce, these measures actually shrank it. Unemployment has stuck at 10 percent or above. Moreover, France discovered that it could not afford its generous welfare, pensions and health care without raising taxes, which was a disincentive to both business and individuals. Into this mess now steps the neo-fascist leader Marine Le Pen. She has just launched her National Front's party manifesto for the presidential election in May. The policy points are hardly less pie-in-the-sky than the past promises of mainstream parties. The National Front is vowing to reverse rises in the retirement age, boost state spending (particularly military outlay including the reintroduction of compulsory national service), protect benefits and cut taxes. None of this adds up in economic terms. But the package is being wrapped in nationalism that rejects globalization, the EU and the euro while dropping the shutters on immigration, with the tacit assurance that this will be aimed principally at Muslims. There seems no doubt that Le Pen and her poisonous policies will make it to the second round of voting for the new occupant of the Elysée Palace. But all the pundits are sure that she will be defeated in the second round as left and center-right supporters come together to choose a rival. The problem is that the rivals are in trouble. Francois Fillon, the man originally tipped to win, is mired in scandal after it emerged that his wife had been paid substantial sums for political work it appears she did not do. Fillon's Republican party, the former UMP, stands accused of concealing a $20 million overspend during the 2012 presidential election. Its then leader Nicolas Sarkozy is now to stand trial over this. The Socialist candidate Benoit Hamon is considered too doctrinaire and is likely to lose support to charismatic former Socialist minister Emmanuel Macron who has set up his own party En Marche! It is not simply that the French political establishment appears to have lost its way. It has also lost the confidence of an electorate fed up with some 30 years of unfilled political promises, during which life has only become tougher. In such circumstances, the siren call of Le Pen's policies grows more attractive. And her fundamentally racist and Islamophobic National Front is now confidently claiming that it can break the French political mold and oust the Establishment elite. It has happened in the United States, says Marine Le Pen, so why should it not also happen in France?
