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Europe
No longer a joke – France is having to take Le Pen's threat seriously
2006-11-13
Besides his penchant for champagne and singing outmoded French songs, far-Right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen is known to like a practical joke. So when he strode purposefully out of his private office at the National Front's presidential convention outside Paris this weekend towards the press tent, camera crews in tow, nobody seemed overly surprised when he veered off at the last minute into the lavatory.

The cameras were still rolling when he reappeared with a grin, chin jutting forth, to carry on with the presidential show. At 78, Mr Le Pen can afford such low farce: his popularity ratings have never been better.

An IFOP poll in this weekend's Le Monde showed that 18 per cent of the French say they will "definitely" vote for the National Front chief. That is nine points more than at the same period before the 2002 election, in which he horrified Europe by coming second to Jacques Chirac.

Mr Le Pen is convinced that his fifth presidential campaign since 1974 – and probably his last – will end in the ultimate electoral earthquake in April's elections: "My goal is not the second round, it's the third: the presidency," he said as he prepared the formal launch of his presidential campaign in Le Bourget, on the outskirts of Paris, yesterday.
Posted by:anonymous5089

#4  Before being worried about Le Pen, first consider two things:

1) Most of what politicians do is normal, boring, and especially local. They truly give the people what they want at this level. The rest of what they do reaches beyond local to effect the rest of the world. But this is only a fraction of what they do.

3) In balance, what we as outsiders should consider, is "Will the good that Le Pen does in France outweigh the bad that he will cause internationally?"

Using these standards for Chirac, he is found wanting on all sides. He is a disaster for France, for Europe, and internationally. His only redeeming quality is his utter incompetence, to go along with his avarice, cowardice, corruption and treachery. He is almost on a par with Napoleon III for being a abject, belligerent fool.

Granted, Le Pen is anti-US. But what course will this take? Chirac has been an utter prick to the US, fortunately he is totally outclassed by the current administration. Le Pen may be an enemy we can get along with better than our "friend". At least he is honest enough to stand for something.

I also know that I am far enough away from French politics to not see if Le Pen really is an ogre, so I leave with the question: what will Le Pen do internationally? If it is just along the order of bringing back the Franc, telling the European Parliment to stick it in their ear, and expelling huge numbers of undesireables back to their own countries, then why should I care?
Posted by: Anonymoose   2006-11-13 10:47  

#3  Could be. He's very ambiguous regarding islam and muslims, not to mention past his recorded links with saddam, or the MM.
There's this Farid Smahi fellow, FN political bureau member, who participated in a pro-hizbullah demonstration in Lyon, along with the commies, the antiglobos,... the ennemy being of course Israel and the USA. Yesterday, the stand up comedian and leftist antisemite dieudonné visited the FN BBR convention, a guest of Farid Smahi again.

This (tactical?) softness toward islam has not escaped everyone
http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/005105.html.

And Martinez, the party (what's left of it after all the purges, anyway) ideologist, has made some surprizing declarations, hinting at rallying the antiglobos kids, the rappers,...
Posted by: anonymous5089   2006-11-13 10:16  

#2  Le Pen is no joke. His anti-semitism and anti-Americanism appeals to the broad mass of the French public. That said, you could not find much breathing room between his views and those of the "mainstream" parties on either of those issues. The only difference his particular statism and French bigotry offers is the vague possibility of doing something about the elephant in the living room. Though it would not surprise me if Le Pen conjured up a brown-green alliance with his fascist fellow thinkers amongst the tiny fringe of Muslim extremists.
Posted by: Excalibur   2006-11-13 09:54  

#1  OT : Lol, this spoof ad cracks me up every time.

It is a rightwing response to a sign by the "gay rights activists" (leftists) from act-up, with their demonization of sarko seen as "too rightwing", with a sarko portrait and the slogan "Vote Le Pen".
Posted by: anonymous5089   2006-11-13 08:51  

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