Poor Whites In France
Whereas the immigrants are incessantly debated by others, poor whites around Europe are something of a forgotten class. The economic crisis hit them hard. In France, many white working-class people now support Marine Le Pen, leader of the Front National, who has an outside shot at getting elected president in 2017.
.. France remains one of the world’s least unequal countries.
.. “In a middle-class school,” she said, “you are in the conditions of work: sit down, take your books out of your bag, work. That’s not true at schools in poorer areas. When they go home, they often aren’t in conditions of work either. Often they share a bedroom with multiple siblings. Often their parents don’t work, so they are the only ones at home who get up in the morning and go to work.” The problems were similar for native French and immigrant kids, she said, except the latter often didn’t speak fluent French.
.. Did he really see homelessness as an acute threat? “Oh yes!” all three of them chorused. It could happen to anyone. Perhaps that fear is part of what it means to be white working class in Europe today.
.. What worries locals most, says the OSF report, is “incivility”.
.. Whenever she sat next to an old lady on the bus, she waited for the standard lament to pour out: “Our poor France, oh là là là là!”
Lombard had thought hard about why this was. “For old people, the young people are like a different tribe,” she said. “It’s like discovering the Zulus. The old talk as if they are not human: a race of youths.”