An outside observer watching France’s presidential election campaign would be forgiven for thinking that immigration, crime and secularism are all that the French public care about. In fact, according to a recent study by Ipsos, a staggering 52% of registered voters said their top concern ahead of April’s first-round vote was the cost of living, followed by healthcare and the environment.
That’s not what the leading candidates are talking about. Instead, the campaign has been dominated by familiar national obsessions such as immigration and crime, but also increasingly inflammatory culture wars over national identity, the place of Islam and laïcité – France’s muscular variant of secularism. These are debates that almost always take place on the right’s terms.
