Conservative pollster Jérôme Sainte-Marie recommends reading Karl Marx to understand the new political landscape in France.

He does not refer to his most famous work, "Das Kapital", but to the text "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte", published in 1852.

In it, Marx analyzes the social structures in France.

He describes "how the class struggle in France created circumstances and conditions which enable a mediocre personality to play the hero role".

Sainte-Marie believes that the narrowing of policy options to the alternatives Emmanuel Macron or Marine Le Pen must be deciphered as the result of a rekindled class struggle.

In two books "Block against Block" and "Volksblock" he presented his ideas.

Michael Wiegel

Political correspondent based in Paris.

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“I belong to what is probably the least Marxist generation.

But I was fascinated by the extent to which voting behavior is determined by a materialistic dimension," says the 56-year-old Sainte-Marie of the FAS. The central left-right dividing line that structured France's political competition for decades has disappeared.

Developments have accelerated over the past five years.

In 2017, the right-wing candidate received 20 percent of the votes and the socialist candidate a good six percent.

In 2022, the result of the civil right candidate fell to 4.8 percent, that of the socialist candidate to 1.7 percent.

Altogether, only over 6.5 percent of voters vote for the political forces that have been dominant for decades.

A "financial elite" against "globalization losers"

“There will be no renaissance of traditional forces.

This illusion was fueled because judicial affairs had damaged the civil rights candidate,” says Sainte-Marie.

In his view, an "elitist bloc" has consolidated around Macron, which has finally burst the ideological dividing lines between right and left.

But what does he mean by “elitist bloc”?

How can an elite form a bloc?

Sainte-Marie means a "financial elite" with above-average incomes, which is supported by a managerial class made up of private sector executives and top state officials, as well as a significant proportion of pensioners with secure pension relationships.

This bloc accounts for about 25 percent of the voters and is therefore sufficiently strong in the French political system to secure a place in the run-off election.

It has a sociological, but also an ideological and political basis.