French elections: the new politics in its starkest form

In June 2014 I wrote a post on this blog suggesting that a new political landscape was emerging in which the primary cleavage was between ‘cosmopolitans’ and ‘locals’. These were the terms coined in the context of organizational sociology by Alvin Gouldner. Adapted to the wider context cosmopolitans are educated and skilled, comfortable with different cultures, relaxed about immigration and liberal about sexuality and gender, travel widely and have a global frame of reference. Locals are poorly