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| Europe | |
| Le Pen Sees His Cause Catchin On in France | |
| 2004-03-08 | |
| When there is a monoculture running the country’s economy, political structures and news media, eventually the result is extremist groups ... Two years after he shocked the French political establishment with a second-place finish in the country’s presidential election, the far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen is once again hoping to embarrass the elite and confound the pundits with a stronger-than-expected showing by his National Front party in regional elections later this month. "The National Front is going to reach 20 percent nationally," a beaming Le Pen predicted, in the sitting room of his palatial home in the suburban hills of Saint-Cloud, west of Paris. "Everybody is opposed to the National Front," he said. "Everybody is hostile. But despite that, we continue to grow." Pollsters and political analysts do not disagree, though most estimated the National Front’s strength at around 15 or 16 percent of the vote. Analysts here are wary of making predictions, since the National Front in the past has demonstrated an ability to surprise; it usually makes its gains in the final weeks of campaigning, and voters who favor the far-right are often reluctant to identify themselves in opinion polls. Le Pen himself will not be on the ballot, the first round of which will be on March 21. He had sought to run for the governor’s post in the southern region called Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur, or PACA, but was disqualified because of a technicality. The far-right leader, however, is hoping to turn even his disqualification into electoral advantage, saying it shows how the elite so fears him that it is willing to use any means to block his political ascent. "I am a victim," he said in an interview. "I was prevented from presenting myself" as a candidate. After coming in second in the first round of the 2002 presidential race, Le Pen went on to a crushing defeat in the two-man runoff, as President Jacques Chirac became the consensus choice for voters across the political spectrum anxious to block Le Pen. There were massive anti-Le Pen demonstrations in most major cities, and unions, business groups and the news media urged a huge turnout to show that France rejected his anti-immigrant, extreme-right views. Chirac won the runoff with more than 80 percent of the vote. But in the past two years, the popularity of Chirac’s government has tumbled. Initially buoyed by its opposition to the U.S.-led war against Iraq, the government led by Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin has been battling a sense of malaise. Unemployment has remained stubbornly high. The government was also widely blamed for failing to act quickly enough -- or even return from vacation -- when a devastating heat wave hit the country last summer, causing the deaths of thousands of elderly, weak and incapacitated people in government nursing homes, hospitals and apartments without air-conditioning. Then came the renewed whiff of corruption. In late January, former prime minister Alain Juppe, Chirac’s longtime political protégé and the leader of the governing party in parliament, was convicted in a political fundraising scandal and barred from politics for 10 years. He continues to keep his party leadership job while he appeals the conviction. Raffarin has urged voters not to "nationalize" the upcoming regional elections and to instead focus on local concerns. Don’t look! Don’t look! But an opinion poll by the Ipsos group published this month in the newspaper Le Figaro found that 47 percent of surveyed voters said they would use the elections as an opportunity to express their opposition to Chirac’s government. The regional governments were created in the 1980s by the government of President Francois Mitterrand as a bid to decentralize this country, where most authority still rests in Paris. The powers of the regional governments remain limited to oversight of infrastructure, tourism and the environment. But with presidential and national parliamentary elections now synchronized on a five-year cycle, the regional elections in 22 regions and four overseas territories -- along with upcoming elections for the European Parliament in June -- offer voters the only chance to voice their opinions at the ballot box before the next presidential vote due in 2007. Le Pen, for his part, is making the most of the two issues he sees as vote-winners: corruption among the ruling elite and immigration. He sees the latter as responsible for a host of ills, from rising crime to social tensions highlighted by last week’s passage of a law banning Muslim girls’ veils from public classrooms. Le Pen, in the interview, said he opposed the law -- which bans all "ostensible" religious symbols -- because it fails to address what he calls the core problem. "It’s not a problem of the veil," he said. "It’s a problem of immigration. Immigration is out of control. We aren’t managing the problem." this is the real problem The former paratrooper said he regularly meets with Frenchmen of North African descent who tell him, "It’s crazy to let in everybody." Oddly, the immigration issue this year seems less of a concern even in the area where the National Front appears to be running the strongest, in the Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur region. Stephane Rozes of the CSA polling firm said immigration "is less important now -- it’s falling back a little." According to his research, the economic situation, and particularly unemployment, is a more pressing concern for most voters, just behind crime, which ranks first in voters’ minds.
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| Posted by:anon |
| #3 Hiryu, I towards economic and social conservatives but some of these European reactionaries are skating the edge. The Austrian Haider sounds like he may have gone beyond the edge. I wonder what TGA thinks of him. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-3-8 11:15:33 PM |
| #2 whiff of corruption Not a bad name for beyond the reach perfume. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-3-8 6:43:11 PM |
| #1 Having mostly failed at integrating the "other" in their midst, the Europeans are going to fall back on the tried and tested methods. Maybe the States go fascist some day, but I expect the Eurotrash to beat us to that state of being. |
| Posted by: Hiryu 2004-3-8 6:25:28 PM |