French malaise

The Telegraph (U.K.) ^ | 04/22/2002 | The editors

[Pokey78]

THIS is a bad time to be a Frenchman. By putting the anti-immigrant demagogue Jean-Marie Le Pen into the second round of their presidential election, French voters will have horrified their EU partners. For the election of "unacceptable" parties at national level has now become a European affair.

France, remember, led the EU in demanding sanctions against Austria when Jorg Haider, like M Le Pen yesterday, came second in an election. In doing so, it sowed dragon's teeth which may be about to spring forth as fully armed hoplites. If there is anything positive to be said about last night's result, it is that there is pleasing irony in all this.

For make no mistake: M Le Pen is a venomous racist. Sheer longevity has softened his image. Like Tony Benn or Ian Paisley, he has appeared less shocking as he has grown older. In this, his fourth attempt at the Elysee, he played down the anti-foreigner rhetoric, concentrating instead on social issues and, above all, on crime. But his views have not changed.

He is the heir to a nasty, authoritarian tradition on the French Right, one that has no real equivalent in British politics: the tradition of the anti-Dreyfusards, of Charles Maurras and the Action Franaise, of Vichy. This philosophy has little in common with mainstream French Gaullism, and even less with the free-market conservative movements of other Continental states. It draws its support from small farmers and shopkeepers, stresses the importance of order and discipline, and appeals to fears rather than hopes. Its last large-scale irruption into the French polity came with the Poujadistes, among whom was a young M Le Pen.

The Front National's success reflects a deep-seated resentment against the two big parties, which seemed to be offering the same blend of corporatist Euro-correctness. Lionel Jospin, in particular, seemed not to have grasped the way in which public opinion changed after September 11. Fears about crime and immigration were kept constantly in the news by a series of anti-Semitic attacks by French Muslims. Yet the mainstream candidates made no real attempt to address these concerns. They made the mistake of treating M Le Pen as beneath contempt, so ensuring that he was the only politician positioned to benefit from voter unease.

With no Left-wing candidate, the coming weeks promise the gruesomely entertaining spectacle of M Chirac and M Le Pen scrabbling for socialist votes. For, in truth, the two arch-enemies have more in common with each other than either would like to admit. M Chirac sees himself as a quintessential Frenchman, campaigning with the full dignity of his office; M Le Pen as the eternal outsider. In reality, though, they are both politicians to their fingertips, adept at saying whatever the voters want to hear. Since the voters do not appear to care very much for what any politicians have said so far, we can expect some unedifying contortions from them both.

[Jorge]

.....French voters will have horrified their EU partners.

Good. I would give anything to see their "horrified" faces. ha

[Phillip Augustus]

Le Pen would have likely fought with the a right-wing Resistance group had he been of age. He is no "surrender monkey".