WEEK after week, Europeans turn their gaze to the American presidential election with consternation and bewilderment. How is it that the world’s second-biggest democracy, with its orderly primary system, comes up with a candidate like Donald Trump? The sense of stupeur is perhaps most acute for the French, whose presidential system resembles America’s more than it does Europe’s parliamentary democracies. For the first time ever, both of the two main French political parties—the Socialists and the centre-right Republicans—are about to stage American-style primaries to select candidates for next spring’s presidential election. French parties used to pick candidates based on a mysterious alchemy of deal-making, seniority and clout. The advent of primaries is altering campaign politics, but not in the way that was expected.
Donald se Trompe
The immediate concern in France is not that the primaries will yield a Trump à la française. The country already has one of those in Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Front (FN), who firmly occupies the role of the populist, nativist…