France’s far right is in transition. Now that Jean-Marie Le Pen is eighty-two, his daughter, Marine, is soon to replace him at the helm of the National Front, whose ideas appeal to twenty-two percent of the voters. And France’s politicians are getting “jumpy” (“A Respectable Front,” January 15, 2011). Your article about the reasons for the jumpiness among the mainstream politicians focuses on Marine Le Pen herself. Thirty-nine percent of the French approved her comparison of Muslims praying in the streets to Nazi occupation. She recently scored thirty-three percent approval rating in a poll, which eclipsed her father’s rating. Next year’s presidential elections may thus be within her reach. Endowed with a “steely pugnacity” mixed with “disarming charm,” she is a frequent television talk-show guest, as well. What a woman! But there is another, much more compelling, explanation for the budding politician’s success: France’s shift to the right. The recent persecution of Roma or Gypsies is a case in point. Feeling the pinch of economic austerity in the wake of the Great Recession, the middle classes are shifting to the right. The only question is how far they will go.