LONDON -- Political experts of all shades have been professing surprise and amazement that Jean-Marie Le Pen, with his wild mixture of views, some overtly racist, should have collected around 17 percent of the votes in the first round of the French presidential elections. But the real surprise is that they should have been surprised.
If ever there was a predictable and predicted pattern in European political development -- indeed in governance worldwide -- it was that the political classes were going to have more trouble retaining links with, and commanding the trust of, the people as a whole, and that this separation and remoteness would lead to protest and extremism in a variety of new and powerful forms.
Endless articles and books have been written on this subject, including one by this writer -- "The Edge of Now," published in 2000. Most of these works have forecast that an increasingly empowered public, "e-enabled" and armed with access to information equal to that available to governments, would generate new political forces and protest movements on a massive scale.