As next year’s presidential elections in France approach, the two front-runners are trying on each other’s clothes.
Marine Le Pen, traditionally a candidate of the extreme right, is seeking more moderate voters by steering her party, the National Rally, toward the middle ground of French politics. More surprisingly, perhaps, President Emmanuel Macron is veering sharply rightward, shocking many of his supporters and raising questions about the boundaries of acceptable political discourse.
Why We Wrote This
The French president and his far-right competitor for the 2022 elections are adopting parts of each other’s platforms, throwing into question just what topics are acceptable in the mainstream.
Last modified on Mon 22 Feb 2021 14.59 EST
A year of the coronavirus pandemic has left many Europeans markedly more fed up, more pessimistic, more critical of the way their government is handling the crisis â and worryingly prone to believe conspiracy theories, according to a major study.
The survey of nearly 8,000 people across France, Germany, Italy and Britain by the French Cevipof political research centre (pdf) showed widespread levels of belief in coronavirus and vaccine-related conspiracy theories across all four countries surveyed â with mistrust highest in France.
More than 36% of French respondents, 32% in Italy and Germany and 31% in Britain agreed that health ministries were working with pharma companies to cover up vaccine risks, while 42% in France, 41% in the UK, 40% in Italy and 39% in Germany felt governments were exploiting the crisis to âcontrol and monitorâ citizens.