PARIS — France’s minister of culture says a rise in ultra-nationalism in France will negatively impact the prized French fashion industry that relies strongly on foreign talent.
Audrey Azoulay told the Associated Press outside the Chloe show in Paris Thursday that a “populist power” like the National Front, which wants France to exit the EU, would be “absolutely incompatible with the idea of fashion and freedom.”
Azoulay added, “A lot of our great fashion designers come from elsewhere.”
National Front leader Marine Le Pen, who’s leading in polls for the April-May elections, has campaigned in favor of leaving the EU and against immigration.
Each season hundreds of fashion industry workers with EU passports travel to Paris without visas because of the EU freedom of movement rules.
