Rising star of the French right Jordan Bardella, a leader of Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National party, recently called for a “Ministry of Government Efficiency” inspired by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the United States. This nod to an American example might have seemed unusual from a French right-winger more liable to assert his own nationalist credentials. Yet the idea of being part of a global conservative wave also offers a certain legitimacy for Rassemblement National on its march toward power.

For Cole Stangler, an American journalist based in Marseille, there are also deeper trends connecting right-wing politics in France and the United States. In his recent book, Le Miroir américain (“The American Mirror”), he warns French readers that their country’s politics bear increasing similarities with the United States. Relaying his conversations with voters who’ve lost all hope and reporting on desolated ex-industrial communities, he finds many of the same ills driving the right-wing turn in France.

Stangler sat down with Jacobin’s David Broder to discuss why French politics looks increasingly “American,” and how it’s turbocharging the rise of the Right.