I agree. It really feels like there is an opportunity for another Hitler type figure to become prominent again. Personally I find it all pretty scary how the far right seem to be mobilising in so many western countries. What is happening in France is not going to help but I am sure a young 17 year old kid nicking some jewellery isn't thinking this is going to really help Le pen. I honestly don't know what the answer is and I think we are too far down the road now to really implement some proper change.
For decades, most countries in the West grew real per-capita GDP, whilst wealth/income inequality reduced.
Starting from the 70s in some countries, certainly accelerating in the 80's, this progression began to reverse. Owners of capital/real estate and those high up the financial services ladder hoovered up an increasing proportion of the economic endeavours of countries.
And the real levels of productive GDP (certainly per capita) have been reducing - although masked by a liberalised financial sector that has made credit cheap and easy. The roots of this has been the outsourcing of much of the manufacturing function to initially sweatshop countries in predominantly Asia. That results in a massive net transfer of wealth from West to East.
It could be argued that there's a certain justice in the West - which derived a fair bit of its wealth through the pillage of the natural resources and human workforces of countries in Asia, Africa, South America, etc in the 17th/18th/19th centuries - transferring back a big chunk of that wealth.
But the consequences in those Western countries is that a lot of the work that was once the preserve of the working classes has vanished. It's been sort of replaced with much less lucrative work - warehousing/order picking, delivery, retail and such.
The upshot is that swathes of populations in the US, UK, France and other western countries are poorer in relation to other sectors of the population (those working within selective sectors).
Traditionally (well, for much of the 20th century at least), these people would turn, politically, to the left. But 'the left', certainly the mainstream left, has adopted most/all of the right-wing economic fundamentals like low taxation (the biggest tax cuts in all western countries over the last 40 years have been for the highest earners), privatisation of public services/utilities, suppressed workers' rights, free trade to allow multinational corporations to exploit cheap labour by outsourcing manufacture, deregulation of sectors like finance, property, etc.
When the mainstream left adopt right-of-centre economic policies, the only distinguishing difference between them and mainstream right-of-centre parties tends to be social/cultural issues. When large numbers (majorities?) of white, straight either don't care about the championed social/cultural issues or even oppose them, then those people have no reason to look leftwards.
They therefore become more susceptible to the populism of the far-right, which offers simplistic 'solutions' to complex issues. Remember also that many far-right parties will include a fair bit of economically left-of-centre policy.
