Le Pen's Voters, Like Trump's, Should Be Taken Seriously

By anyone’s standards, the town of Ennemain is tiny, just a few hundred people nestled among sleepy fields two hours north of Paris. By American standards, it is also startlingly lovely, and very old. With its old brick houses and its winding roads, Ennemain is easily imaginable as it looked in 1793 -- when the population was, yes, several hundred people.

I was in Ennemain because it was the site of Marine Le Pen’s last rally in the runoff of the French presidential election. I was given a very thorough pat-down on my way in, but otherwise, it was a charmingly informal thing: A bandstand was set up at an intersection, abutting the streets filled with a few rides, some stands, children shrieking in joy. The crowd assembled itself on a bank facing the stage; some of the younger attendees climbed up on a stack of hay bales to get a better view. As soon as Le Pen left the stage, a band started playing, loud. There was no question what century those amplifiers came from.