When Jean-Marie Le Pen made it into the second round of the 2002 French presidential election, part of the horror many voters felt was in seeing, in stark light, a face of the nation that had previously been in shadow. “It means people we know voted for the Front National,” a shaken friend and supporter of the Socialist candidate, Lionel Jospin, told me at the time. Even understanding the reasons – economic protest, apathy in the mainstream – did not diminish the impact, nor the anger. Tout comprendre, ce n’était pas tout pardonner.
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