Posted on 04/20/2003 3:03:28 PM PDT by MadIvan
A YEAR ago today, Regis Demeester voted for Jean-Marie Le Pen, the National Front candidate, in the first round of the French presidential election.
Im a racist and I cant stand all the immigrants who live around here, M Demeester said as he sat in his allotment garden on the outskirts of Dunkirk, northern France, this weekend. If I voted for the National Front, it was to scare them.
Yet it was not just the ethnic minorities who were scared by the extreme right-wing partys success on April 21, 2002. With M Le Pen beating Lionel Jospin, the Socialist Prime Minister, for a place in the run-off against President Chirac, the shockwaves were felt throughout all sections of society.
Newspapers said that French democracy faced its greatest threat since the Second World War; more than 1.3 million demonstrators took part in protest marches across the country; and M Chiracs long-time adversaries on the Left abandoned the habits of a lifetime to campaign on his behalf.
In the end, M Chirac was returned to power with 82 per cent of the vote in the second round of the election and mainstream France breathed a sigh of relief at what it said was the defeat of extremism.
But in Saint-Pol-sur-Mer and other parts of provincial France such confidence seems misplaced. Last year, M Le Pen obtained one of his best results here, winning 30.29 per cent of the 10,780 votes cast in the town. The factors that induced that outcome remain present today.
There is petty crime. There are the industrial wastelands that surround a once-thriving port. Above all, there is the distrust that divides the communities. On one side of the N1 road that cuts through the suburbs of Dunkirk are the allotment gardeners: white, working-class men who cultivate onions, potatoes and a deep dislike of foreigners.
Of course Id vote for the National Front again, M Demeester said. Nothings changed. There are still as many immigrants around here, and they still commit as much crime as ever.
Two months ago, burglars broke into his house, which is next to the police station in Saint-Pol-sur-Mer. He does not know who was responsible, but blames the Algerians from Grande-Synthe, on the other side of the N1.
The other day I came across two of them trying to steal a couple of childrens bicycles just down the road from here, he said. I told them to stop and they just laughed at me. What are you going to do about it? they said. I wasnt always a racist, but when you have to put up with that sort of thing all the time, you end up by becoming one.
In the bare concrete square in the centre of Grande- Synthe, Mirouane, 25, and his friends smiled amiably as they discussed such prejudice. All are the children of immigrants who came from Morocco, not Algeria as M Demeester believed, to work in the local steel factory.
We grew up here, went to school here and got our diplomas here. But whereas all the white people I know with the same qualifications as me have a job, Im out of work, Mirouane said. As soon as an employer sees your CV with an Arab name and address from Grande-Synthe, youve got no chance.
There are two ways to react to racism. You can react intelligently, and put the person in his place; or you can let the hatred get the better of you. Many do. They become racist against the whites.
It was this hatred, on both sides of the divide, that led to the National Fronts triumph a year ago. Since then, Nicolas Sarkozy, the Interior Minister, has launched a drive to win back National Front voters to the mainstream Right, promoting law and order policies and expelling illegal immigrants.
Yet despite such initiatives, M Le Pen, 75, was in ominously buoyant mood as he was re-elected as the movements president at its national conference in Nice at the weekend. He used the occasion to start his campaign for the regional elections next year and seemed to be confident that he could create another shock, a confidence shared by many pollsters. M Le Pen also vowed to lead his party until he is 95.
M Le Pen is likely to stand next year as candidate for the presidency of the regional council that represents Provence, the French Riviera and the Alps. If he wins, it would give him a powerful base. Many think that he can. Moreover, whereas this time last year mainstream France rose up against M Le Pen, since then, the campaign against him has petered out and it is M Le Pen, not his adversaries, who is setting the agenda.
Today, for example, his daughter, Marine, will be promoted to the National Fronts policy-making committee, from where she could launch a bid to succeed her father when he eventually retires. A divorced mother with three children, she lends the National Front the veneer of respectability that it craves.
You know, the place that the leftists love.
Regards, Ivan
The other day I came across two of them trying to steal a couple of childrens bicycles just down the road from here, he said. I told them to stop and they just laughed at me. What are you going to do about it? they said. I wasnt always a racist, but when you have to put up with that sort of thing all the time, you end up by becoming one.
There is palpable bitterness on both sides of the N1. And a government that would prefer to look the other way.
Under these circumstances, things have a way of not working out...
Considering that France has a growing Muslim minority, France could use a politician who would deport those people and clean the place up. All the countries in Europe could use some nationalists, and America as well while we're at it. The Swiss are going in the wrong direction--they just joined the UN. The Swiss should be led by what I think was called the People's Party, which is right-wing and nationalist as opposed to globalist. There are a lot of these parties in Europe, and they're approaching 15% of the vote. I hope that number increases.
Had Pim Fortuyn not been shot by a Leftie eco-terrorist, he would have cleaned up Holland. There are a lot of people in Europe that are sick of the New World Order cheerleaders and the EU centralizers in Brussels.
I understand American conservatives might be miffed at LePen for not supporting the Iraq war, but then, who cares anyway? You can't expect France to rubber stamp everything the U.S. does, and we won the war anyway--they were irrelevant. Let them go their own way. No hard feelings.
Regards, Ivan
Pin Fortuyn's thesis and policies were far more elegant: you do him a terrible injustice by suggesting Le Pen, a street thug with an egomania problem is anything like him.
Ivan
I'm going to chop off your hands!!
Absolutely! There is a huge difference in being concerned about immigration to being an out-right bigoted racist!
That is one heck of a sentence! On one hand he's a "whacko racist", yet on the other hand his positions are the most "sensible of the three parties" and the "only one that can save France". You remind me of all the people who sit around at cocktail parties moaning about all the illegals here in the U.S. and yet won't vote for a candidate that talks about dealing with immigration issues. Pat Buchanan is the only candidate that has tried to address the immigration issue here and he was immediately branded "racist, xenophobic, anti-semitic," etc. in order to marginalize him. And, of course, the marginalization works since no good soccer mom would go out and vote for a "racist". She just goes to the next dinner party and and complains about all the illegals.
Wow, a regular LeBuchanan...
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