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Le Pen's comment on fascism is close to the mark. Le Pen has waged a gentlemanly campaign, so far as I can see. (I was in Paris from April 9 to the 17th.) It was the Le Pen posters that were being defaced by the Left. It was Le Pen who was being smeared. It was the anti-Le Pen groups that fell into hysteria and the tactics of intimidation.

I do not suspect that Le Pen will win in the run off. There are still too many, with too long a history, of identification with the Left in France. If most of them who bother to vote, join the large French Center under Chirac, Chirac will indeed win by the landslide predicted. Nevertheless, the gradual upward trend for Le Pen--I believe that he was at 14% in 1995--is encouraging. That he defeated the Socialist candidate, and obtained 5 times the vote of the Communist candidate, are truly good omens.

Of course, Le Pen is not the Far Right in French politics, but the Far Right today are so outnumbered that they do not even field candidates. However, there are still those who would restore the Bourbons--which is the true Far Right in France.

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site

Le Pen is not what we would identify in the Anglo-Saxon world as being a "conservative". His ideas on the state's involvement for the economy lean more to Ted Kennedy than Ronald Reagan.

He also represents a unique strand in French political life which has been there since the 1950's - that of the populist maverick who doesn't like foreigners. His programme has shifted back and forth over time but not on that point. And given the street crime which is disproportionately committed by immigrant youth - the average François is apparently fed up with socialist piffle in reply.

Regards, Ivan