Gideon Rachman

It was France that gave the world the concepts of the left and right in politics. Now it is France that is leading the way in the destruction of this divide and its replacement by a new politics, one in which the two dominant camps are nationalists and internationalists.

The left-right cleavage has its origins in the French revolution of 1789 — when supporters of the royal veto stood on the right of the National Assembly and opponents stood to the left. Over the following two centuries, left and right became the central philosophical divide in Western politics.