Monsieur Donald Trump

Last year, when I was still living in France, it was a popular trend to dress up as Trump for carnival. A suit, a red tie, orange makeup, swooshy blond hair, what a funny costume! It was funny because Trump was a joke, right? While America is currently rioting and/or celebrating, most French are left dumbfounded and scared.

Nicolas Sarkozy, from the Union Popular Movement of the French Right, was elected president of France from 2007 to 2012. His presidency caused a lot of turmoil and political frustration, notably with many student protests in Paris. In retaliation, France elected François Hollande, a socialist, in 2012. Ever since, the man has been seen as a joke, spiking hatred towards the Left party. It would make sense for France to want to elect a different candidate in 2017; somebody different from the middle ground Sarkozy and from the extreme leftist Hollande. A person who fulfils that requirement is Marine Le Pen.

A British comedian made a video called “IDIOTS” that joked about the British begging the Americans to “be the bigger moron” so that the world would forget about Brexit. Truth is, it’s impossible to understand the American election without acknowledging the resurgence of the right wing in other Western powers. Retaliating against Merkel, the rightist politicians are rising in popularity in Germany. Brexit happened in the UK. Racist and rightist ideologies are controlling Eastern European politics. As of now, Trump got elected in the United States. The next French presidential election is scheduled on April 23rd of 2017, and there’s one name that we can expect to find on the ballot: Marine le Pen.

Marine le Pen, the leader of France’s far right Nationalist party, views the American election as a sign of hope for France. In an interview she stated that it "makes the French realize that what the people want, they can get, if they mobilize themselves." France looks up to the United States, so if they can do it, so can we.

Given recent evidence, it seems likely that Marine Le Pen will go far in the 2017 election. Trump’s win makes this statement stronger, because it would mean that France would have a strong ally across the Atlantic if Le Pen were to win. This would lead to the Western powers being almost exclusively ruled by the Right.

Trump’s candidacy has been documented in the French media in the same way that Kim’s outfit choices were on “Keeping Up With The Kardashians.”According to Marie-Alix de Percin, a law student at Blomet Assas in Paris, “Well, the French media was so much against Trump, that the French people were obviously against him as well. Nobody mentioned the bad side of Hillary, and nobody mentioned why Trump was doing so well. Obviously in France it was an enormous shock because to the French people, the choice simply seemed obvious.” It seemed as if  Trump’s political rhetoric would never be taken seriously by the French. He was a joke, and the election’s results were the punchline. For many, it felt easy to simplify the results, blaming them on “American stupidity.” The image of the fat American chomping on a Mcdonald's burger muttering racist rhetoric is an easy way to answer the questions “why?” and “how?.”

The election’s results hit France on a personal level because American political decisions have repercussions on international politics. After the progressive policies of France’s superhero, Barack Obama, it is hard to remain hopeful with a man who announced that he would “cancel every unconstitutional executive action, memorandum and order issued by President Obama” if he won the election. The French seem to see that hate trumped love in the world’s leading power, oppressing anybody LGBT, of color, and who was not male or rich. More specifically, it was terrifying for the French Left to realize that a man who clearly stated that global warming was a hoax invented by the Chinese was taken seriously. As a country that never uses air conditioning, France is very environmentally aware. Rachel Jessup, French/Belgian student at London School of Economics, said: “As a student studying Environment and Development, his environmental policy is especially worrying to me and probably what affects me the most.” Any of the United States’ major decisions, such as cutting funding towards global warming, could create a domino effect in the rest of the world.

In the words of Nicole Ferroni, a famous French radio persona, “I woke up this morning with faith in humankind. . . . (This election) put me off, because it hurt me right in my humanity.” Similar to how people reacted after Brexit, many French people are left shocked, questioning the very moral foundations of humankind.

It is important to mention that all of the French people that I have quoted and alluded to thus far are very clearly affiliated to the Left party. They represent a substantial part of the French population: the younger, usually Left-leaning people. However, similar to the United States, France is currently very divided. On one side, we find a very liberal population that does not want Marine Le Pen. On the other, an arguably larger portion of people is happy and hopeful about Trump being elected.

France’s Right was already rising before Trump won. In the context of the refugee crisis, Europe is fragile. Most countries in the European Union belong to the Schengen zone, that ensure no border control amongst all countries that belong to it. After Merkel allowed so many refugees into Germany, the rest of the countries in the Schengen zone have developed a fear of Middle Eastern terrorists creeping into their country.

This was made worse when terrorist attacks occurred in France. This fear of refugees turned into hatred, recently proven with the destruction of the Calais Jungle, the biggest French refugee camp. To evacuate the camp, the French policemen used tear gas on families that had nowhere else to go in a country that hated them. The Right was able to harness this hatred and change it into nationalist pride, allowing France to keep the illegal immigrants out with Marine Le Pen as their spokesperson.

On November 9th, 1989, the Berlin wall came down. On November 9th, 2016, a man who wants to build a wall was elected.

But let’s not forget that the only way to build a better future is through discussion, not by perpetuating hatred. We are all entitled to our political opinions, no matter whom you’re affiliated with. There are no bad guys in real life. If we disagree, good. Let’s talk about it.