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France's Le Pen To Strike a Deal With Muslims
The New York Sun ^ | 2/17/06 | MICHEL GURFINKIEL

Posted on 02/18/2006 8:53:19 PM PST by dervish

It looks like a political oxymoron, but Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front is poised to strike an alliance with France's large immigrant Muslim community.

A generation after France's right-wing party began its surge with a tough anti-immigration campaign tinged with both racism and anti-Semitism, three factors are coming into play that could spell a strategic realignment.

These factors, which are still little grasped outside political circles in France but will have an enormous impact, include:

* The Islamicization of France is largely a fait accompli. It is assumed that 6 to 8 million citizens or residents of France, 10% to 13% out of a global population of 62 million, are Muslim by now. And that the Muslim community, being more prolific, is much younger than the rest of the population: As much as 25% of French citizens or residents under 20 is Muslim, with the number reaching 40% or 50% in the big cities.

* The National Front is surprisingly popular among Muslim immigrants or second-generation Muslim citizens. For all its campaigning about immigration, Mr. Le Pen's party has always extended support to Arab and Islamic causes abroad, from Saddam's Iraq to Arafat's or Hamas Palestine, and from Al Qaeda to Iran. And it is as firmly anti-American and anti-Jewish as the Muslim community itself tends to be.

* The attraction of the French far left, which accounts for another 20% of the national vote, toward Islam, rabid anti-Americanism, and even anti-Semitism, a phenomenon underscored by the emergence of Dieudonne, a former liberal music-hall humorist who has turned into an enormously popular French equivalent of Louis Farrakhan.

'snip'

(Excerpt) Read more at nysun.com ...


TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: antisemitism; dieudonne; eurabia; eurosceptic; france; islamist; islamization; lepen; muslim; nationalfront; neofascists; philippedevilliers
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To: Do not dub me shapka broham
Leon Blum.

Who was a Communist Stooge.

21 posted on 02/18/2006 9:55:27 PM PST by Hermann the Cherusker
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To: Paleo Conservative; dervish; Cacique
Pretty much.

Did you hear Buchanan on Sean Hannity's nationally syndicated radio show earlier this week?

The guy was positively apoplectic.

I know that he lost it some time ago-maybe sometime between his abortive political alliance with New Age Marxist kook Lenora Fulani and his claim that Germany was entitled to annex Poland-but he really sounded unhinged on WABC.

It was almost as if a Muslim had a scimitar pressed to this throat as he made that phone call.

Odd.

22 posted on 02/18/2006 9:57:28 PM PST by Do not dub me shapka broham ("The moment that someone wants to forbid caricatures, that is the moment we publish them.")
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To: null and void

Yes, I'm eager to learn. And I've got another question to ask you and I'm not afraid to appear ignorant - because I am. I'd appreciate it if you'd reply by private post. Thanks so much in advance.


23 posted on 02/18/2006 9:58:31 PM PST by T.L.Sink (stopew)
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To: dervish

Le Pen, like Maurras, was always more interested in the Conservative Catholics as a basis for support, rather than a basis for philosophy and plan of action.

Before, the only reason to vote for the National Front was that they were the only Pro-Life party in France. Undoubtedly this vote will now fall to the MPF.


24 posted on 02/18/2006 9:59:15 PM PST by Hermann the Cherusker
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To: T.L.Sink
Click the underlined text:

Nully's FR HTML Guide

We all had to start somewhere!

Please feel free to FReep mail me as needed (or even if you just want to...)

25 posted on 02/18/2006 10:02:55 PM PST by null and void (before the darkness there's a moment of light, when everything seems so clear)
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To: dervish


...how many French journalists are going to be asked to commit ritual suicide in this deal?


26 posted on 02/18/2006 10:10:00 PM PST by Tzimisce (How Would Mohammed Vote? Hillary for President!)
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To: null and void

Thanks a million! Now comes the practice. It's kind of like learning a new language.


27 posted on 02/18/2006 10:22:01 PM PST by T.L.Sink (stopew)
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To: dervish
Nothing unusual here. Nazis and fascists have always made common cause with the Islamic fascists.
28 posted on 02/18/2006 10:35:14 PM PST by El Gato
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To: A. Pole

Well let's remember that on a percentage basis, French newpapers were much better at reprinting the Danish cartoons than the American media.

Okay the above is a bit off topic but among all the French bashing, I thought I might just remind folks of this.


29 posted on 02/18/2006 10:46:12 PM PST by Monterrosa-24 (France kicked Germany's teeth out at Verdun among other places.)
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To: dervish

I am not sure that Le Pen is not being smeared here. If he wants accomodate the presence of the Muslim population in France, he has surrendered to what he has fought against for so long. Le Pen is not a fascist, imo; however, he has always stood up for the French people when no other major political figure would. He would have made a fine leader if he had come to power a decade or two ago. Now I would favor Bruno Gollnisch to take over the helm of the Front National, if he is able to escape conviction for the most ridiciulous charge, which stems from him merely calling for a discussion of the Holocaust. (Le Pen does have Jewish and Black supporters of and members in his party, btw.)


30 posted on 02/19/2006 12:09:46 AM PST by Lessingham (Robert Aickman and Russell Kirk: The Best Ghost Story Writers Were On the Political Right)
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To: dervish

OY FREAKING VEH, that's all I can say.


31 posted on 02/19/2006 1:45:31 AM PST by jocon307 (The Silent Majority - silent no longer)
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To: Unam Sanctam
Yep, Le Pen is definitely the scum that forms under whale crap at the bottom of the ocean.

I hope he doesn't expect anyone to sing "Marechal, nous voila" to him though. Petain was respected and then pitied, but Le Pen is and will be reviled.

32 posted on 02/19/2006 1:49:25 AM PST by Petronski (I love Cyborg!)
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To: Do not dub me shapka broham
...bigoted, cowardly, appeasement-minded slimeball that has led that country in the 20th century, with the possible exception of Leon Blum.

Nah. No exception for Blum. He was as self-interested, spineless and parochial as the rest of them. The Third Republic got exactly the government they deserved.

33 posted on 02/19/2006 1:51:51 AM PST by Petronski (I love Cyborg!)
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To: Monterrosa-24
Well let's remember that on a percentage basis...

Per journal? Or per circulation?

A higher percentage of papers is irrelevant if only the tiny ones print it. They're no better than us.

I'd be impressed to see the cartoons appear in Le Monde or Paris Soir, but I don't remember that happening yet..

34 posted on 02/19/2006 1:55:48 AM PST by Petronski (I love Cyborg!)
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To: A. Pole

I agree. French Jews and everyone else should have supported Le Pen while the Muslim immigration explosion was in its infant stage. Calling Le Pen an anti-Semite is a red herring and inaccurate. Opposing him in years past seems to me much more "objectively anti-Semitic" than supporting him would have been.


35 posted on 02/19/2006 3:38:23 AM PST by Lessingham (Robert Aickman and Russell Kirk: The Best Ghost Story Writers Were On the Political Right)
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To: CatoRenasci
Le Pen isn't "right" He's merely a nationalist, but so were and are many on the Left (e.g. Castro, Chavez, Ho Chi Min, Mao.)

Liberals like to call anyone they dislike "right", facts notwithstanding. Basically, US liberals represent cosmopolitan Left, whereas Le Pen represents nationalistic Left. Many Le Pen associates are former Communists, e.g. that guy who distributed pork-based charity soup in heavily Muslim neighborhoods.

36 posted on 02/19/2006 4:14:12 AM PST by Feldkurat_Katz (What no women’s magazine ever offers to improve is women’s minds - Taki)
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To: Feldkurat_Katz
You can't look at notions of left and right in Europe and America the same way, although the American left is looking more and more like the European left.

The "right" in Europe began, and remains for the most part to this day, in opposition to increasing liberty and the destruction of monarchism, even absolutism. After the American Revolution, that sort of "right" either left for Canada, England or the other colonies, or accomodated itself to the republican and classical liberal principles undergirding American independence. The closest thing to American mainstream conservatism historically is probably the 18th and early 19th century English Whig party.

The European equivalents of our right are actually mostly small parties like the German 1Freie Demokraten ("Free Democrats").

We do have very small elements of the European ultra-right, for example Buchanan and his ilk, and a sprinkling of neo-Nazi nutters. The nutters have never had much of a following (the 1920's Ku Klux Klan was primarily populist and Southern Democrat), but Buchanan and his ilk deserve some comment.

Pat Buchanan is probably the closest thing to a European (especially French) ultramontagne catholic conservative who is active in American public life. His authoritarian impulses are strong and his anti-semitism is increasingly poorly disguised. The amazing thing is that he lasted as long as he did in mainstream conservatism.

37 posted on 02/19/2006 5:35:35 AM PST by CatoRenasci (Ceterum Censeo Arabiam Esse Delendam -- Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit)
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To: Do not dub me shapka broham
Le Pen is a despicable, chauvinistic Frenchman, and a blatant anti-Semite.

Even if so, would the French Jews be worse off if his program to limit Muslims immigration were in place years ago? Back than there was nobody else trying to do it.

38 posted on 02/19/2006 5:57:10 AM PST by A. Pole (Milosevic: "And when they behead your own people [...] then you will know what this was all about.")
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To: dennisw; Cachelot; Nix 2; veronica; Catspaw; knighthawk; Alouette; Optimist; weikel; Lent; GregB; ..
If you'd like to be on or off this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.
Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking the keyword or topic Israel.

---------------------------

LePen returning to his roots. No surprise.

39 posted on 02/19/2006 6:00:57 AM PST by SJackson (There is but one language which can be held to these people, and this is terror, William Eaton)
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To: dervish
We have been impressed by the courage of de Villiers for years, remained puzzled that our traditional Catholic friends in France were enamored with Le Pen.

Ce n'est pas Le Pen.....
40 posted on 02/19/2006 6:07:24 AM PST by 8mmMauser (Jezu ufam Tobie...Jesus I trust in Thee)
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