Posted on 05/05/2002 11:33:46 PM PDT by LarryLied
France's Jewish community, Europe's largest, welcomed the defeat of extreme right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen in the presidential election on Sunday but warned that his score was worryingly high nonetheless.
''The French people have rejected the danger represented by Jean-Marie Le Pen, champion of the anti-Semitic, racist and xenophobic extreme right,'' the 600,000-strong Jewish community's main representative body, the CRIF, said in a statement.
Le Pen, who once called the Nazi gas chambers a ''detail'' of history, secured 18 percent in a runoff against Jacques Chirac, the conservative incumbent. That was marginally higher than Le Pen scored two weeks ago in a shock first-round vote.
The CRIF said Chirac's victory ''should not conceal the concern represented by the still overly large number of people who lost their way.''
Similar concerns were voiced in the United States.
Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League that fights religious, ethnic and racial discrimination, said it was disturbing to see Le Pen nearing 20 percent.
''The good news is that he was defeated. The bad news, the sad news, is that one out of five French voters ignored the fact, or it didn't matter, or they liked they fact that he was a racist, a bigot, an anti-Semite,'' Foxman said.
Most French left-wing parties called on their supporters to back Chirac, like it or not, to shut Le Pen out.
Referring to French parliamentary elections taking place in June, the CRIF said there should be ''no compromise'' with extreme rightists. Le Pen's anti-immigrant National Front is expected to field a large number of candidates.
PROUD TO BE FRENCH
German-born Beate Klarsfeld, who lives in Paris with her husband Serge, a French Jewish Nazi-hunter, welcomed Sunday's vote, saying a Le Pen breakthrough would amount to a return to the days of the pro-Nazi Vichy regime of World War Two.
''Bravo for France! This vote shows the French people do not want to return to the past and do not want to be ruled by despicable people nostalgic for the Vichy regime,'' she said.
Her son Arno, a lawyer who campaigns with his parents, added: ''I am very proud to be Frenchman tonight.
''Contrary to what one hears abroad, France is not a racist country and its people have shown again that they know how to rally together when there is a danger threatening them.''
Le Pen's firebrand anti-immigrant rhetoric fuels fear among both Jews and Europe's largest Muslim population, which is mostly of North African origin.
A row broke out among French Jews last month when it emerged that some had voted for Le Pen in the first round on April 21.
Michel Zerbib, editor at Jewish radio station Radio J, said up to five percent of Jewish voters were estimated to have voted for Le Pen in the first round, most of them people living in blue collar areas with big Arab populations.
One explanation was that their vote was directed against the Muslim community of around five million, following a wave of anti-Jewish violence apparently linked to the conflict in the Middle East between Israel and the Palestinians.
The comments by Monsigneur Olivier de Berranger, bishop of Saint-Denis, will infuriate Mr Le Pen, who claims to be a devout Christian, guided and assisted by God. The bishop said no "clear-minded Catholic" should consider voting fo Mr Le Pen, who was "the heir to a totalitarian and anti-Christian" tradition.
I suppose now you will attack this Catholic Bishop. Or is it only Jews that appear in your crosshairs?
I despise all socialists. I am not responsible for how groups tend to vote. You take it up with them if you like.
If I went after Rabbi Lapin, Mark Levin and Ilena Ross-Lehtinen your snotty insinuation might have validity. But I don't go after them. I support them 100%. So you don't have a point.
Take your Identity Politics, race-baiting nonsense to the Democratic Party, why don't you? They love that garbage.
You meant this as a sarcasm, didn't you? If I had a choice between someone who said bad things about me and someone who did bad things to me, I would--well, I would get the hell out of France, but first I would go to the polls and vote for the guy who only said the bad things.
Besides, I'm not aware of Le Pen actually having said anything hateful about Jews. He just said he was not a fan of them, which is not surprising, given that the French love only themselves. I'm not a fan of Michael Jackson, but I don't want to kill him or torch his studios.
At first glance it appears to me that LePen has gotten the same broad tar brush as Buchanan....a few seemingly insensitive comments over a highly sensitized topic and then the whole world regards one as a jackbooted Nazi. Yet just last week LePen was on record fully supporting Israel's right to defend herself....something shockingly few Euro-Politicos have done recently. I admit I do not know enough of the particulars on LePen to condemn him....the insensitive comments about "details" are not enough in my view and I believe that the French Arabs are a greater threat to Jews and Christians alike than LePen or his cronies.
Odd isn't it? Anyone to the right or far right (like me) are automatically assumed to be anti-Jew yet who has just quite recently been Israel's staunchest supporters here in the US. Folks just like me Larry. Southern hard right gun owning white protestant "bad boys"....that's who....and in a higher proportion even than American Jews. Incredible. I saw one poll of Southern Baptists where the pollster could find not one person who would side with the Pali's and their cause ...that's 100% support. And it's not all evangelical rapture ....it's simply how we salt of the earth types recognize right and wrong....and enemies when we see it.
Yet, give it another month and if all goes back to the normal Mexican standoff in the Middle East, all our support will be forgotten and we'll go back to being stereotyped as Jew-hating rednceks. IT GETS OLD.
LarryLied: "Take your Identity Politics, race-baiting nonsense to the Democratic Party, why don't you? They love that garbage."
Scratchgolfer is from Montgomery County, Maryland. What did you expect?
That she is. A typical conservative. She is more interested in ideas than making a big point over her faith. Lots of Democrats despise her because she is such a fierce anticommunist. Guess that makes them, by the criteria we have seen on this thread, antisemites.
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