Posted on 03/29/2006 1:07:52 PM PST by GOPGuide
Summary SNIP
A new right-wing figure has come to the forefront as the popularity of Jean-Marie Le Pen, the surprise contender of the 2002 election, has begun to wane. De Villiers, leader of the Movement for France party, is the second serious contender who has emerged to challenge Sarkozy. De Villiers often uses his boisterous actions to express his disdain for the European Union and all things related, even commenting on the joy in using a national currency instead of a euro. He also is a firm advocate of the ideology that France's social misfortunes stem from lax immigration laws. He was a leader of the "no" vote campaign against the EU constitution and even coined the term "Polish plumbers" when speaking of the dangers of the influx of cheap labor from eastern EU states.
Polls show that de Villiers has actually caught up with, or in some cases overcome, Le Pen's popularity -- and remember that Le Pen actually made it to the second round in his last presidential run. Regardless of whether de Villiers has garnered his support from his own base or siphoned it from Le Pen or Sarkozy's center-right, the point is not that he becomes a force to be reckoned with but that the French electorate retains a very sizable minority that rejects all things European or Muslim. Sarkozy has attempted to co-opt the average Frenchman's disaffection with Muslims -- for example, by blaming recent violent riotous activities on "hooligans" from certain neighborhoods -- but de Villiers' rhetoric is hard to beat. His political machine was, among other things, behind the recent trend of offering pork-laced food to those in need in order to explicitly make Muslims and Jews feel unwelcome.
(Excerpt) Read more at stratfor.com ...
Are still you sure that Villepin is strong enough to survive these riots and get the support of the UMP?
I hope so because Villepin will bleed center right and right voters all over over the place in the first round. Villiers will pick up most of those voters. Sarkozy would be more difficult for Villiers to take votes from.
The French are all or nothing - communist or fascist. They are a turd world country with nukes, with a post-Christian westernized remnant that will be extinct in 100 years.
Pork may France's best weapon against the islamo-facists.
No way it will last that long. - I may well outlast them.
No, I think that Villepin has returned to form.
He surprised me when he came out of the box on things like debt reduction, and when he saw the banlieu disturbances for what they were.
But with the CPE (not as in "Contrat de Premier Emploi", mais plutot "Comment Perdre une Election"), and his foreclosing debate on it in the Chamber of Deputies, he has returned to the form of the Dominiquette who advised Chi-Chi to call an election...and blow up the RPR's majority in Parliament...for no reason whatever.
Villepin can't get out of this box. He will be forced to withdraw the law. I expect that the Conseil Constitutionnel will hand him a gift and suggest the law be redrafted, which will allow him (if he is smart) to be able to save some face, withdraw the law, let it be debated (and lose) on the next draft. But saving face will be just that. French people are not stupid. They will see him caving, and cave he will.
Meanwhile, snarky little Sarkozy has gotten himself excluded from Cabinet meetings by suggesting the law was a mistake (NO! What was his first clue?)
There is still some time before 2007, but the UMP are where I thought they would be, before Villepin had his fleeting flare of competence and surprised me.
Well, he is back now to what I thought of him initially. Except now the whole country and world gets to watch this arrogant prat twist in the wind and pontificate madly, before utterly collapsing and backing down. French people don't like that.
Sarkozy? Well, he was unimpressive in the Beur disturbances.
As I expected after the rejection of the European Constitution, Philippe de Villiers is on the rise. He probably won't be the next President, but he'll divide the right.
Madame Presidente Royal.
She is very pleasing to look at, at least.
"The French are all or nothing - communist or fascist."
Neither.
France is a capitalist, compassionate social democracy.
And will remain so.
LePen used to brag about his claimed actions against the Muslims. No chance that the French would overreact with a final solution v2?
5 years ago Stratfor would never have swallowed that meme hook line and sinker.
Once again, there are specific Jewish religious law teachings that allow for non-Kosher sustenance.
I'm suprised this guy's organization hasn't been out on the streets with free soup again, all they needed was a professional chef and a health dept. permit.
Poisoning ethnic French poor people with undercooked pork soup is no way to go about being a ethnonationalist.
"LePen used to brag about his claimed actions against the Muslims. No chance that the French would overreact with a final solution v2"
Not much of a chance, no.
de Villiers' pork soup schtick was to make a point: France has a culture, and always had. Join it.
No matter how much one might ache to find something anti-Semitic in it, one can't. French Jews don't eat in soup kitchens. They're well off. North African Muslims do.
Recall that France is a secular country. That is the culture and has been since the Revolution. Villiers point was: integrate. And a major part of integration is to tone down religious differences that are not in synch with the prevailing culture. He was aiming at Muslims, but mainly at French, saying "I will stand up for France as a CULTURE, and not simply as a geographic entity where every culture is equal. French culture comes first in France." That's his point. It has resonance.
He picked up a lot of momentum with his opposition to the EU Constitution.
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