First posted on Instagram · @profilopolitics
Former NYPD Inspector Paul Mauro says Islamism and the radical left are creating chaos in France — through a "red-green alliance," open borders, and progressive policies that treat the far left as useful idiots — and that the chaos is driving French voters straight to Marine Le Pen.
The numbers behind his argument are stark. Mauro points to the latest Ifop polling showing Le Pen at 32% in the first round of the presidential race — 16 points ahead of far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon — and leading by double digits in every scenario tested. Other recent polling puts her higher still. Mauro's point is simple: the public is already choosing a side.
The wider Ifop research, conducted for Marianne magazine among nearly 9,700 respondents, shows a country bracing for her victory: 46% of Muslim respondents — and 44% of Jewish respondents — say they would consider leaving France if Le Pen wins, and 81% of Muslims expect discrimination against them to rise. Yet the same public backs tougher rules by wide margins: 53% oppose the Islamic veil in public streets, 75% support the ban on abayas in state schools, and 72% back banning conspicuous religious symbols in sports. All of it plays out against mass protests — officially about the state of French education — that have gripped the country.
Le Pen herself draws a careful line. Islam, she has said repeatedly, is compatible with the Republic — Islamist fundamentalism and Sharia are not. "Those who seek to establish Sharia law in France will find me in their way," she vowed on CNEWS this week, calling the veil part of a totalitarian ideology she would begin banning in universities, sports federations and public buildings, under a referendum bill to combat Islamist ideologies. And to the Muslims who say they would leave, her answer was blunt: "It's their country! They are French too!" — they are wrong, she says, to fear her.
Mélenchon and the left tell a different story: for them, the unrest flows from inequality, police overreach and economic frustration — not Islamism — and they reject the idea that open borders or progressive alliances are the main driver. Many French officials likewise continue to treat the violence primarily as a social and security problem rather than a civilizational one.
Mauro insists that framing is exactly the problem — and he draws the parallel across the Atlantic. The same red-green dynamic, he argues, is visible in the United States around figures like Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan and Ilhan Omar: Islamist movements advancing behind progressive cover, while the establishment treats the alliance's foot soldiers as useful idiots. Without a course correction, he warns, France risks losing its identity altogether.
France votes for a president in April 2027, and on every current measure the National Rally leader starts as the front-runner. Whether voters are choosing Le Pen or fleeing the chaos around them may not matter to the outcome — as Mauro puts it, the polling shows the public has already picked its side. The only question left is whether France's establishment hears it in time.
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