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giancarlonicoli · 5 years

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29 APR 2019 18:41

NON FATEVI PRENDERE PER IL CURRICULUM! – PER FARE CARRIERA ACCADEMICA CI SONO VARI “METODI”: IL PRIMO È PAGARE PER FARSI PUBBLICARE RICERCHE FARLOCCHE – A SEGUIRE, I CONCORSI “PROFILATI” PER I CANDIDATI CHE SI VOGLIONO FAR VINCERE FINO AL BUON VECCHIO CONTROLLO BARONALE – FAMILISMO E COMMISSIONI “NON PIÙ DEGNE DI FIDUCIA”, ECCO COME FUNZIONA L’UNIVERSITÀ IN ITALIA – VIDEO: QUANDO LO SCOMPARSO PROFESSORE LUIGI RUSSO SI LASCIÒ SFUGGIRE IL VERO SENSO DEI CONVEGNI

VOLETE FARE CARRIERA UNIVERSITARIA? DOVETE PAGARE! – ARRIVA LO STUDIO CHE APRE IL VASO DI PANDORA DEL MONDO ACCADEMICO: MIGLIAIA DI RICERCATORI UNIVERSITARI PER FARE LA SCALATA SPENDEVANO FIOR DI QUATTRINI PER FARSI PUBBLICARE RICERCHE SCENTIFICHE E SCALARE LE GRADUATORIA – IN TOTALE SONO STATI SPESI 2 MILIONI E MEZZO, CON UNA MEDIA DI 400 EURO AD ARTICOLO

https://www.dagospia.com/rubrica-29/cronache/volete-fare-carriera-universitaria-dovete-pagare-ndash-arriva-studio-202002.htm

DAGOREPORT

Come ha scritto Lorena Loiacono per il “Messaggero” (ripreso da Dagospia) “Sono stati spesi quasi 2,5 milioni di euro per vedere pubblicate ricerche scientifiche che probabilmente, senza spendere un euro, non sarebbero andate da nessuna parte. Pubblicazioni praticamente fasulle, comprate, utili solo ad arricchire curriculum, indispensabili però per far carriera”.

“Per entrare in università bisogna pagare”. Ma anche se non si paga con moneta sonante i meccanismi che creano un curriculum ad hoc per far sì che venga poi bandito un “concorso profilato” per il candidato CHE SI VUOL FAR VINCERE passano attraverso logiche economiche (lavoro gratis e simili) o di controllo baronale (metodi di appartenenza e filiazione).

“Concorsi profilati” vuol dire che nel bando si cerca un candidato con tali e tali caratteristiche che corrispondono a un solo essere vivente: quello che la “comunità scientifica”, il barone, ha deciso di far vincere perché ha ormai fornito i servizi richiesti (svolto esami al posto del docente, seguito tesine, impaginato riviste, fatto da segreteria tuttofare e altri, meno nobili, lavori, come fare la spesa…).

Come fare? Molto semplice: se devo mettere in cattedra un ornitologo e il mio candidato ha studiato la cinciallegra e conosce, che so, il tedesco, il bando richiederà a un certo punto “… particolarmente gradita la conoscenza di uccelli come la cinciallegra... Si richiede la conoscenza del tedesco”. Quindi se un ha studiato il pettirosso, l’aquila reale e il gufo, sa inglese e francese e magari si è specializzato in veterinaria perde. Ora è nato un “Osservatorio” (vedi sotto) che denuncia tutto questo e sta mettendo a disposizione molte informazioni.*

Per prima cosa, qui un vademecum di come ti metto in cattedra, in quattro-cinque anni, il figlio di…, l’amante, l’amico, il mio tuttofare facendolo diventare il partecipante vincente di un concorso “profilato” bandito per lui.

Molto semplice. Tengo per un annetto o due presso di me, docente, il giovane prescelto (figlio di un collega, amante, un ricco di famiglia che non ha bisogno di lavorare…) come semplice “Cultore della materia” con qualche rimborso dall’ateneo. Poi gli/le faccio vincere uno dei posti a disposizione per un Dottorato di ricerca, così per tre anni è pagato e se ne sta in università a fare il segretario tuttofare.

Poi gli/le faccio vincere una delle numerose borse di studio all’estero dove, di solito, il borsista va assai poco ma scrive una tesina, in lingua straniera, a fine esperienza. Intanto gli/le ho fatto pubblicare articoli pseudo “scientifici” sulla rivista di Classe A che io docente dirigo e nessuno legge, l’ho fatto intervenire a convegni organizzati da me dove sono presenti solo i convegnisti e, infine, dall’editore universitario è arrivato il mio turno per scegliere un libro da pubblicare e scelgo quello del mio protetto.

Questo, e non altro, è quanto sciaguratamente i concorsi universitari (criteri stabiliti da Anvur e Mibac) valutano. A questo punto siamo pronti: basta un “bando profilato” ed è in cattedra. E’ una competizione scorretta dall’inizio e che non si può poi raddrizzare. Né il rottamatore Renzi né gli homines novi dei Cinque Stelle e della Lega stanno mettendoci mano.

Vediamo alcuni esempi per capire meglio e, in specifico, due “denunce” dell’”Osservatorio concorsi”.

RIVISTE DI CLASSE A, B… O A VANVERA? E CHI LE LEGGE? NESSUNO.

L’Anvur, è l’organo di valutazione delle riviste “scientifiche”: ce ne sono migliaia, che nessuno legge, nemmeno chi le scrive. Scrivere su una rivista di classe A conferisce punteggio per il concorso universitario; per una di classe B meno, per le altre nulla. Ovviamente ciascun barone ha piazzato la rivista che dirige (o per la quale collabora) in classe A; ma l’Anvur a finito per metterci persino riviste assurde e il loro contrario: si va dagli “Acta Archaeologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae” ad “Abitare”; da riviste che manco escono alla rivista principe sull’arredo. Delle due l’una: o ha senso riviste che non leggono nemmeno gli specialisti oppure hanno senso quelle che hanno presa anche sul mercato.

Nelle riviste delle scienze naturali e mediche gli articoli sono, in genere, firmati da molti autori. Come dire: più siamo più la ricerca fa impressione. Ma non bisogna lasciarsi ingannare: in genere contano il primo e l’ultimo firmatario: gli altri sono messi in mezzo per far… titoli per il concorso dove saranno piazzati.

SOCIETA’ SCIENTIFICHE O CONCORSUALI?

Le società scientifiche, costituite o controllate tutte da docenti universitari, dovrebbero svolgere attività scientifica in aggiunta a quella universitaria. Ma spesso servono solo per piazzare gli aderenti nei concorsi.

Di una società di Filosofia (la Sie, Società di Estetica) circola un filmato su internet dove l’ex presidente, lo scomparso professore Luigi Russo, si lascia sfuggire il vero senso dei convegni organizzati dalla “Società scientifica” della quale era vicepresidente l’attuale rettore dell’Università degli Studi di Milano, Elio Franzini: “(il nostro ndr) è un convegno, che poi è uno pseudo convegno: serviva per incontrarsi per le faccende concorsuali” (dal minuto 55 al minuto 105 dell’allegato video registrato all’Università di Torino).

I membri della società sono presenti in quasi tutte le commissioni concorsuali del loro raggruppamento e possono così far vincere altri loro associati. Sostanzialmente, diverse società scientifiche finiscono con il diventare organismi paralleli di controllo dei concorsi attraverso i loro membri che compongono le commissioni in favore di aderenti alla società stessa. Chi non è all’interno (e quindi non paga quota e non sottostà alle logiche di appartenenza) è improbabile che vinca un concorso anche se molto più preparato! Così è in moltissime società “scientifiche”. In Italia, s’intende!

IL LAVORO

Aver svolto una professione ad alto livello non dà alcun punteggio nei concorsi. Per cui, poniamo, a un concorso in “Teoria della comunicazione televisiva” se si presenta Fedele Confalonieri, presidente di Mediaset, che magari ha deciso di mettere la sua esperienza al servizio dei giovani, la sua lunga esperienza nel settore vale zero. Zero. Meno di un articolo di due pagine di un sub-assistente con due note sull’allegato della rivista di classe A! Da qui uno capisce perché i professori universitari italiani ormai contino poco e il distacco dal mondo delle professioni sia abissale. E perché i figli della “élite” italiana (molti dei politici e dei direttori di giornali) studino all’estero.

I PRIN

Sono i progetti di ricerca finanziati dal ministero. Qui vale la stessa cosa delle riviste: un docente che, tramite aderenze al ministero, riesce a far finanziare il proprio progetto di ricerca ci butta dentro gli ex studenti che vuole: ovviamente quello da mettere in cattedra.

USCITE DEI BANDI

I bandi di concorso sono ricorrenti come il bollino nero sulle autostrade: in genere escono con l’esodo di agosto e si concludo prima del rientro estivo. Cioè: se non ti dicono che sono banditi perché è il “tuo concorso”… hai voglia a scoprirli nei siti degli atenei che lo bandiscono o in quello del ministero! Sono nascosti e banditi in periodo estivo, quando l’università è ferma da mo’. E’ un sistema che funziona al contrario, insomma: se tu vuoi il più bravo dovresti dare massima visibilità al concorso; ma se tu vuoi che a vincerlo sia quello che hai già scelto ed è magari scarsino devi metterti il più possibile al riparo da sorprese: meglio che non lo scopra nessuno e non ci siano altri partecipanti.

VALUTAZIONE TITOLI

Ci sono concorsi che valutano con lo stesso punteggio (mettiamo 3 punti) monografie di 500 pagine che hanno fatto nuove scoperte e brevi scritti di nessun approfondimento scientifico su una rivista fuori classe ma ugualmente valutati dal presidente di commissione. Specie quando a presentarsi è il suo assistente o protetto. Alcuni di questi casi, recentemente, sono stati impugnati persino dalle università che hanno bandito il concorso, tanto era l’evidenza. Ma senza l’intervento della magistratura – che non interviene quasi mai – non se ne può far nulla. Tra i pochi interventi sanzionatori della magistratura quello contro la moglie dell’ex rettore della Statale, Fernanda Caizzi Decleva. L’ex rettore della Sapienza, Luigi Frati (come molti altri), fu indagato per “parentopoli”.

FAMILISMO

Secondo uno studio statistico e scientifico, condotto da Stefano Alessina, ricercatore all’Università di Chicago, il fenomeno del nepotismo è ben radicato nelle università italiane. Gli studi hanno rivelato che i settori disciplinari più esposti sono Ingegneria industriale, Legge, Medicina, Geografia e Pedagogia. E, facendo riferimento alla distribuzione geografica, il fenomeno diventa più frequente al Sud, in particolare nelle isole, anche se non sono esclusi alcune importanti università italiane. Tra i 10.783 accademici in Medicina sono stati rilevati 7.471 cognomi distinti. Le prime cinque università con il maggior numero di cognomi sarebbero: Libera Università Mediterranea «Jean Monnet», Casamassima di Bari, Sassari, Cagliari, Suor Orsola Benincasa di Napoli, Catania.

OSSERVATORIO

Come dicevamo è nato recentemente l’ “Osservatorio Indipendente dei Concorsi Universitari” che denuncia pubblicamente il maggior numero possibile di “bandi profilati”. L’art. 24, comma 2, della Legge 240/2010, prevede infatti che non si possano inserire nei bandi “competenze così specifiche da scoraggiare i potenziali candidati”. Ovviamente i dipartimenti che bandiscono concorsi fanno, indisturbati, l’esatto contrario.

L’ultima denuncia-segnalazione dell’Osservatorio è avvenuta a Pasquetta con una lettera indirizzata al rettore di Padova (Rosario Rizzuto, che è anche membro del Commissione dei rettori) relativa ad un concorso “profilato” per la I fascia in Chimica generale. La lettera, come al solito, è stata inviata anche al ministro Marco Bussetti (Lega) e al Viceministro dell’Università Lorenzo Fioramonti (Cinque Stelle), che queste cose dovrebbe saperle visto che, per insegnare, ha dovuto trovarsi un’università in Sud Africa. In questo caso, il bando profilato richiede al candidato “linee di ricerca riguardanti la chimica metallorganica nei suoi aspetti fondamentali e applicativi, con particolare riferimento all'utilizzo dei metalli di transizione in sintesi e catalisi metallorganica, anche di interesse industriale”: guarda guarda giusto giusto il profilo del candidato interno all’università.

Stessa cosa era avvenuta il 15 aprile quando l’Osservatorio aveva segnalato ai professori Franco Anelli, Guido Merzoni e Damiano Palano facenti parte la commissione il concorso della Cattolica (rettor eil giurista Franco Anelli ) in “Filosofia politica”: in questo caso al candidato era richiesta la conoscenza dei “meccanismi di selezione delle élite, dai rapporti fiduciari ai processi di mediazione degli interessi, alle dinamiche di disintermediazione e di reintermediazione”. Scrive l’Osservatorio: “Tale profilo replica verbatim il progetto di ricerca, del tutor Prof. Damiano Palano”, e, guarda caso, il concorso è stato vinto dal candidato interno “Dott. Antonio Campati, attualmente Professore a contratto presso la Facoltà di Scienze Politiche e Sociali, il quale ha prodotto nel frattempo diversi contributi sul tema”.

Nelle commissioni universitarie non crede più nessuno, nemmeno il Consiglio di Stato. “Le commissioni universitarie, a parer nostro, non sono più degne di fiducia”, scrive il Consiglio di Stato nell'ultima sentenza in tema di concorsi non credibili. E si rivolge direttamente al ministero dell'Istruzione intimando di riconoscere la cattedra di Diritto del lavoro alla docente Carmela La Macchia, bocciata tre volte da tre commissioni diverse nominate per gestire l'Abilitazione scientifica nazionale nella sua disciplina: le aveva preferito, nel ruolo di professore di prima fascia, un altro candidato.

E così il Consiglio di Stato, dove è finito il primo ricorso, alla fine ha scritto al Miur: siete obbligati a dare l'idoneità all'appellante. E a pagare 6.500 euro di spese legali (sentenza 1321 dello scorso 25 febbraio).

I casi già “denunciati” sono molti. Homines novi o meno, l’università NON CAMBIA MAI. Forse renderla meritocratica e legata alla società non porta voti. E, dopo Renzi, anche Lega e Cinque Stelle sembra ci abbiano rinunciato.

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thursdayfilebuzz · 7 years

Photo

Photo I: Manuel Valls, the former Socialist prime minister, at a debate at a union center in Puteaux, France, this month. France’s presidential election is being watched as a barometer of European disaffection. - by Eric Piermont // Photo II: Beppe Grillo, the leader of Italy’s anti-establishment Five Star Movement, in Turin in December. Italian constituencies that used to back the Democratic Party are turning to Five Star, which is Euroskeptic and anti-globalization. - by Alessandro Di Marco // Photo III: Matteo Renzi, the former Italian prime minister, at a ceremony in Rome on Dec. 12, not long after a referendum brought down his center-left government. - by Alessandro Bianchi // Photo IV: Benoît Hamon With French Socialists in Crisis, Manuel Valls and Benoît Hamon Head to Runoff by Alissa J. Rubin - January 22, 2017 - https://www.nytimes.com BOISSEUIL, France — A furious Jean-Marc Ducourtioux shouted with his fellow union members as they banged on the plexiglass window of a meeting hall in small-town France. Inside was Manuel Valls, the former Socialist prime minister, who was campaigning for president in this bastion of the French left. A member of France’s oldest trade union, Mr. Ducourtioux, 52, was a stalwart Socialist Party voter who once might have been inside, cheering. But no longer. His hands callused by three decades as a metalworker, Mr. Ducourtioux is angry that the Socialist government has failed to stop French automakers from moving factories outside the country, as manufacturing declines in this decaying region. He said he was at risk of losing his job at an automotive subcontractor. “Mr. Valls knew the situation here,” Mr. Ducourtioux said. “He did nothing.” France’s presidential election this year is being closely watched as a barometer of European public disaffection, and no party is more visibly out of favor than the governing Socialists. President François Hollande, a Socialist, is so deeply unpopular that he is not running for re-election. Mr. Valls came in second out of seven candidates in a primary of left-wing parties on Sunday. With about 31 percent of the vote counted, Mr. Valls trailed the top vote-getter, Benoît Hamon, a former education minister in Mr. Hollande’s government, who took about 36 percent of the votes. More worrisome for the left was that turnout was roughly 50 percent lower than it was in 2011, when the the left-leaning parties last held a primary. Few analysts believe that any of the Socialists have a real shot at retaining the presidency in the April general election. The collapse of the establishment left in France is hardly a unique phenomenon. Across Europe, far-right populist parties are gaining strength, including in France, while the mainstream left, which played a central role in building modern Europe, is in crisis. From Italy to Poland to Britain and beyond, voters are deserting center-left parties, as leftist politicians struggle to remain relevant in a moment when politics is inflamed by anti-immigrant, anti-European Union anger. “Wherever you look in Europe the Socialists are not doing well, with the exception of Portugal,” said Philippe Marlière, a professor of French and European politics at University College London. He added that the left lacked “a narrative that tries to unite the different sectors of the working class.” Each country has its distinctive dynamics, but one common theme is the difficulty many mainstream left parties are having in responding to the economic and social dislocation caused by globalization. In Italy, constituencies that used to routinely back the center-left Democratic Party are turning to the new anti-establishment Five Star Movement, which is Euroskeptic and anti-globalization — just as some working-class, left-wing voters in France are now looking at the extreme-right National Front. “We have a population cut in half by globalization,” said Thomas Guénolé, a political science professor at Sciences Po in Paris and the author of “Unhappy Globalization,” who sees the winners and losers of globalization as the axis of European politics. A breakdown of voting patterns in the December referendum in Italy, which resulted in the fall of the center-left government, revealed that urban centers, the southern half of the country and young, unemployed workers overwhelmingly rejected the reform measures put forward by Matteo Renzi, then the prime minister. “Those very voters who were traditionally represented by the left in this case, veered to the Five Star Movement,” said Marco Damilano, a political commentator for the newsmagazine L’Espresso. He added that the new party had built on popular anger even though it did not offer answers for the malaise. The coalition of Poland’s two biggest left-wing parties, the Democratic Left Alliance and Your Movement, suffered a humiliating defeat in 2015. Not only did the conservatives win an absolute majority in Parliament for the first time since the collapse of communism, but the left garnered so little support that not a single left-wing politician represents those interests in Parliament. In Britain, the Labour Party is in tatters with a leader who appeals to activists but has failed to build a broad-based coalition. Across Europe, the old Socialist blocs have fractured into smaller parties, partly because their voting bases have changed but also because rampant inequality and the decline of the middle class have created fertile ground for more extreme parties. “On the left they are trying to stand up for their old core group, industrial workers,” said Steve Coulter, who teaches political economy at the London School of Economics. “But then there’s another group on the left, who are pro-free trade, L.G.B.T., flat-white drinking, bearded hipsters — and that’s the middle-class part of their support.” The result in France is that the National Front, led by Marine Le Pen, “has moved into the old traditionalist, protectionist precincts of the authoritarian left,” Mr. Coulter said. In Limousin, a relatively poor area of central France best known for the succulent beef from its cattle industry, its yellow apples and its elegant Limoges porcelain, these broader economic forces are evident. Mr. Ducourtioux said that he had voted for Mr. Hollande in the last election, but that this time he was looking toward the National Front, although he stopped short of naming it. You have Trump — who do you think I am going to vote for?” Mr. Ducourtioux said. For years, the regional economy was built on agriculture, manufacturing and small businesses that were subcontractors to larger enterprises like the automakers Renault and Peugeot. And for most of the last 100 years it was a left-leaning stronghold. The Socialist mayor of Limoges, Alain Rodet, served multiple terms until he was toppled in 2014 by a well-known psychiatrist, Émile-Roger Lombertie. He had no government experience and ran as an outsider (although on the eve of the election he became a member of the mainstream conservative party, now known as the Republicans). In those same local elections, National Front candidates won an unprecedented 17 percent of the votes in the first round, a high figure given the leftist traditions of the area, which was the birthplace in 1895 of France’s leading trade union. In a small storefront office, Vincent Gérard, a representative of the National Front in the region, said the party’s growth was telling because the left was so entrenched there. His own story is typical of many people in the region. His small electrical supply business once had five employees but now has two, including himself. “Eighty percent of my clients were industrial, and in five years I lost all of them,” he said. “The markets are no longer local,” he said. “They have gone to Romania, or the Czech Republic, I don’t know exactly. They’re in Europe, but in Eastern Europe.” Compounding the sense of a changing world, even a modest wave of immigration disturbed many local residents. Beginning about six years ago, a small number of sub-Saharan Africans arrived in Limoges, soon followed by bigger numbers of Eastern Europeans. “So, here in our street, we had principally Bulgarians, afterwards Romanians and then Albanians,” Mr. Gérard said. “Why? This I know, because Europe no longer has any borders.” At the same time, many affluent people began moving to the suburbs for bigger houses and left the city center to older people and newcomers, many of whom were migrants. Mr. Rodet, the mayor who was toppled, said that just weeks before the election, there had been a rumor that an abandoned military base near the center of Limoges would become a home for “3,000 Kosovars.” “It was not true, but I did not respond quickly enough,” he said, and by then the idea had gained currency. Not all traditional centrist voters are concerned about immigration or dwindling manufacturing jobs. Alexis Mons, a high-tech entrepreneur, has a digital marketing firm, Emakina, which does branding worldwide for companies, many of them high end. His worry is the politicians and citizens who want to turn back the clock and stop the pace of change, so he is looking closely at the policies of Emmanuel Macron, the former economy minister under Mr. Hollande. Mr. Macron is running for president as an independent, favors international trade and is rising in the polls. “You have an old industrial base that is very much intertwined with the political milieu in some fashion,” Mr. Mons said. “All this little world talks to each other, it has its customs, it does business and then a new economy is born, a new economy with start-ups, with people coming from the internet, and that no one foresaw.” There are now more than 100 high-tech firms just in Limoges, Mr. Mons said, yet few people in the area know about the business park where the companies are. “I have the impression that a good part of the establishment lives wearing the spectacles of the 20th century,” he said. He added that politicians were manipulating the picture so that “in the working-class neighborhoods, there has been a sense of abandonment that pushes people into the arms of the National Front.” “The world has changed,” he said, “and a certain number of people do not want to see that.”

#tf france #tf italy #manuel valls #beppe grillo #five star movement #socialist #matteo renzi #benoît hamon

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newstfionline · 7 years

Text

For France’s Left, a Time of Crisis

By Alissa J. Rubin, NY Times, Jan. 22, 2017

BOISSEUIL, France--A furious Jean-Marc Ducourtioux shouted with his fellow union members as they banged on the plexiglass window of a meeting hall in small-town France. Inside was Manuel Valls, the former Socialist prime minister, who was campaigning for president in this bastion of the French left.

A member of France’s oldest trade union, Mr. Ducourtioux, 52, was a stalwart Socialist Party voter who once might have been inside, cheering. But no longer.

His hands callused by three decades as a metalworker, Mr. Ducourtioux is angry that the Socialist government has failed to stop French automakers from moving factories outside the country, as manufacturing declines in this decaying region. He said he was at risk of losing his job at an automotive subcontractor.

“Mr. Valls knew the situation here,” Mr. Ducourtioux said. “He did nothing.”

France’s presidential election this year is being closely watched as a barometer of European public disaffection, and no party is more visibly out of favor than the governing Socialists. President François Hollande, a Socialist, is so deeply unpopular that he is not running for re-election. Mr. Valls is running in the Socialist Party primary on Sunday, along with six other candidates, but few analysts believe that any of the Socialists have a real shot at retaining the presidency in the April general election.

The collapse of the establishment left in France is hardly a unique phenomenon. Across Europe, far-right populist parties are gaining strength, including in France, while the mainstream left, which played a central role in building modern Europe, is in crisis. From Italy to Poland to Britain and beyond, voters are deserting center-left parties, as leftist politicians struggle to remain relevant in a moment when politics is inflamed by anti-immigrant, anti-European Union anger.

“Wherever you look in Europe the Socialists are not doing well, with the exception of Portugal,” said Philippe Marlière, a professor of French and European politics at University College London. He added that the left lacked “a narrative that tries to unite the different sectors of the working class.”

Each country has its distinctive dynamics, but one common theme is the difficulty many mainstream left parties are having in responding to the economic and social dislocation caused by globalization. In Italy, constituencies that used to routinely back the center-left Democratic Party are turning to the new anti-establishment Five Star Movement, which is Euroskeptic and anti-globalization--just as some working-class, left-wing voters in France are now looking at the extreme-right National Front.

“We have a population cut in half by globalization,” said Thomas Guénolé, a political science professor at Sciences Po in Paris and the author of “Unhappy Globalization,” who sees the winners and losers of globalization as the axis of European politics.

A breakdown of voting patterns in the December referendum in Italy, which resulted in the fall of the center-left government, revealed that urban centers, the southern half of the country and young, unemployed workers overwhelmingly rejected the reform measures put forward by Matteo Renzi, then the prime minister.

“Those very voters who were traditionally represented by the left in this case, veered to the Five Star Movement,” said Marco Damilano, a political commentator for the newsmagazine L’Espresso. He added that the new party had built on popular anger even though it did not offer answers for the malaise.

The coalition of Poland’s two biggest left-wing parties, the Democratic Left Alliance and Your Movement, suffered a humiliating defeat in 2015. Not only did the conservatives win an absolute majority in Parliament for the first time since the collapse of communism, but the left garnered so little support that not a single left-wing politician represents those interests in Parliament.

In Britain, the Labour Party is in tatters with a leader who appeals to activists but has failed to build a broad-based coalition.

Across Europe, the old Socialist blocs have fractured into smaller parties, partly because their voting bases have changed but also because rampant inequality and the decline of the middle class have created fertile ground for more extreme parties.

“On the left they are trying to stand up for their old core group, industrial workers,” said Steve Coulter, who teaches political economy at the London School of Economics. “But then there’s another group on the left, who are pro-free trade, L.G.B.T., flat-white drinking, bearded hipsters--and that’s the middle-class part of their support.”

The result in France is that the National Front, led by Marine Le Pen, “has moved into the old traditionalist, protectionist precincts of the authoritarian left,” Mr. Coulter said.

In Limousin, a relatively poor area of central France best known for the succulent beef from its cattle industry, its yellow apples and its elegant Limoges porcelain, these broader economic forces are evident. Mr. Ducourtioux said that he had voted for Mr. Hollande in the last election, but that this time he was looking toward the National Front, although he stopped short of naming it.

“You have Trump--who do you think I am going to vote for?” Mr. Ducourtioux said.

For years, the regional economy was built on agriculture, manufacturing and small businesses that were subcontractors to larger enterprises like the automakers Renault and Peugeot. And for most of the last 100 years it was a left-leaning stronghold.

The Socialist mayor of Limoges, Alain Rodet, served multiple terms until he was toppled in 2014 by a well-known psychiatrist, Émile-Roger Lombertie. He had no government experience and ran as an outsider (although on the eve of the election he became a member of the mainstream conservative party, now known as the Republicans).

In those same local elections, National Front candidates won an unprecedented 17 percent of the votes in the first round, a high figure given the leftist traditions of the area, which was the birthplace in 1895 of France’s leading trade union.

In a small storefront office, Vincent Gérard, a representative of the National Front in the region, said the party’s growth was telling because the left was so entrenched there. His own story is typical of many people in the region. His small electrical supply business once had five employees but now has two, including himself. “Eighty percent of my clients were industrial, and in five years I lost all of them,” he said.

“The markets are no longer local,” he said. “They have gone to Romania, or the Czech Republic, I don’t know exactly. They’re in Europe, but in Eastern Europe.”

Compounding the sense of a changing world, even a modest wave of immigration disturbed many local residents. Beginning about six years ago, a small number of sub-Saharan Africans arrived in Limoges, soon followed by bigger numbers of Eastern Europeans.

“So, here in our street, we had principally Bulgarians, afterwards Romanians and then Albanians,” Mr. Gérard said. “Why? This I know, because Europe no longer has any borders.”

At the same time, many affluent people began moving to the suburbs for bigger houses and left the city center to older people and newcomers, many of whom were migrants.

Not all traditional centrist voters are concerned about immigration or dwindling manufacturing jobs. Alexis Mons, a high-tech entrepreneur, has a digital marketing firm, Emakina, which does branding worldwide for companies, many of them high end.

His worry is the politicians and citizens who want to turn back the clock and stop the pace of change, so he is looking closely at the policies of Emmanuel Macron, the former economy minister under Mr. Hollande. Mr. Macron is running for president as an independent, favors international trade and is rising in the polls.

“You have an old industrial base that is very much intertwined with the political milieu in some fashion,” Mr. Mons said. “All this little world talks to each other, it has its customs, it does business and then a new economy is born, a new economy with start-ups, with people coming from the internet, and that no one foresaw.”

There are now more than 100 high-tech firms just in Limoges, Mr. Mons said, yet few people in the area know about the business park where the companies are.

“I have the impression that a good part of the establishment lives wearing the spectacles of the 20th century,” he said. He added that politicians were manipulating the picture so that “in the working-class neighborhoods, there has been a sense of abandonment that pushes people into the arms of the National Front.”

“The world has changed,” he said, “and a certain number of people do not want to see that.”

#France #French left #French Socialists #French politics #Manuel Valls

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