From French foes unite against Le Pen (BBC online article)
Anyone see a Red Flag?
Posted on 04/22/2002 8:16:16 AM PDT by syriacus
PARIS, Monday, April 22 — "Start the party!" shouted Jean-Marie Le Pen as the last words of his victory speech, and a roar went up, drowning out the fusillade of Champagne corks at the buffet.
Then he reneged, and asked that all first sing the national anthem, "The Marseillaise": "Let's go, children of our country, the day of glory has arrived. . ."
The crowd packed into his overheated headquarters in the Paris suburb of St. Cloud poured it on in full throat on Sunday night, straight through to the words about engaging the foreign enemy and "irrigating our fields with their polluted blood."
Mr. Le Pen, the former paratrooper running for president for the fourth time, is, in some ways, like France's anthem itself: incontestably stirring, unsubtly antiforeigner, and sometimes rather scary if taken literally.
His victory speech, though, was strictly on the stirring side, an appeal to "the excluded, you the miners, the steelworkers, the workers of all those industries ruined by the Euro-globalization of Maastricht, you the farmers forced into ruin, you the first victims of crime in the suburbs and cities" and to all those feeling dispossessed.
There was no race-baiting. Rather, he called on "the French of all races, religions and social conditions to rally around this historic chance or a national recovery."
He also played it as a populist: "I am a man of people. I have known cold, hunger and poverty."
He even managed what one of his supporters said was an echo of New York's mayor, Michael R. Bloomberg, calling himself "socially on the left, financially on the right and nationally, wholly for France."
His fans were ecstatic. As the surveys of voters leaving the polls began giving him second place, they hugged, hopping up and down.
At the giant screen television, his supporters waved goodbye en masse when Prime Minister Lionel Jospin appeared. When President Jacques Chirac did, they shouted, "Chirac — to prison! Chirac — to prison!" a reference to his corruption scandals
Nonetheless, few seemed to think Mr. Le Pen had a chance to win the second round.
"Not really," said Dr. Olivier Podvin, 41. "But he's a great debater, and wants to take on Chirac."
Cecile Bachelot, 44, a real estate agent, also shook her head. "But he'll make alliances with all those disappointed by Chirac, so maybe he'll have a chance."
No one seemed surprised that pollsters had underestimated Mr. Le Pen's support — in this case, by more than three percentage points, just as in 1995.
Several said they themselves were reluctant to admit being fans. "Your friends get big eyes because the media has given him such a bad image," said Philippe, 20, a management student. He refused to reveal his last name and had avoided television cameras all evening, he said, because "at my university, the professors can be very, very angry if they know I support Le Pen."
The headquarters crowd was bifurcated — one contingent quite aged, the other quite young, their clothes generously covered with "Le Pen Youth" bumper stickers.
Patrice de Blignieres, 73, a former computer engineer, said he and Mr. Le Pen had been friends since going to the same Jesuit high school. "He hasn't changed," Mr. de Blignieres insisted. "France has evolved."
Mr. Le Pen would not want to remake his image quickly to appeal to centrists, nor would he be able to, he said, but the candidate could build on what Mr. de Blignieres thought was his secret: a growing distaste for the European Union.
"The money, the army, the justice system are all in the hands of Europe," Mr. de Blignieres said. "We can't abdicate to Brussels. If I give you my wallet, it's you that has the power over me."
Several in the younger crowd, insisting they were not racists but blaming Arab immigrants for a crime wave, said they thought law and order was his best issue.
After midnight, when most of their elders — and most of the press — had left, the crowd began to boogie. In coats and ties, or rugby shirts, they looked like young Bush Republicans — albeit better dancers, whirling each other across the blue carpet against the blue walls.
Thousands of their left-wing contemporaries gathered in Paris's Place de la Bastille and in of Toulouse, Strasbourg and other cities and marched under the red Communist Party flags to protest the double victory for French conservatism.
NYT never fails to piss me off.
Several said they themselves were reluctant to admit being fans. "Your friends get big eyes because the media has given him such a bad image," said Philippe, 20, a management student. He refused to reveal his last name and had avoided television cameras all evening, he said, because "at my university, the professors can be very, very angry if they know I support Le Pen."
I guess French universities are PC-communes, too.
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity---except for people who disagree with the leftists.
The reason for my question: if you click on the link now, you will find a different ending of the article; the reference to read the Communist flags of has been removed.
Thank you for the information.
My son had emailed me the same article. But I didn't read my email until just now. The ending in the email was also---
Thousands of their left-wing contemporaries gathered in Paris's Place de la Bastille and in of Toulouse, Strasbourg and other cities and marched under the red Communist Party flags to protest the double victory for French conservatism.The email was time stamped 11:00 AM
Le Pen's National Front Party has connections to Neo-Nazis in Austria.
Rather meaningless, consider for example that David Duke ran as a Republican and therefore Republicans have a connection to the KKK.
That line is not in the printed newspaper version that I just bought 10 minutes ago.
Well he certainly is not socially conservative and has said so himself, but I am sceptical of how Le Pen has been presented. Essentially the prosecution has presented two items as evidence that Le Pen is some sort of Nazi. One is his anti-immigrant stance and the other is dismissing the Holocaust as historical "detail".
Precisely how is being anti-immigrant a problem? Certainly the behavior of Muslim organizations and many individuals since 9/11 has made a case that the flow from Muslim lands should be scrutinized thoroughly and if that cannot be done, then shut off completely. The anti-Semitic attacks in France seem to be the work of Muslim immigrants. Le Pen was a paratrooper in Algeria and saw what the current government of Algeria did in its terroristic struggle against the French.
The second is that Le Pen dismissed the Holocaust as a "detail." This is repeated over and over, but without the context and without identifying the translator (who may have an axe to grind or just may not be sufficiently informed about the nuances of using a particular word). Did he mean that the Holocaust is one mass murder among many in history or did he actually mean to belittle the Nazi mass murder of Jews?
I am open to Le Pen being what the media and the "reasonable" politicians are painting him as, its just that proof is going to have to be more than off hand comments and the proof has to come with all the footnotes and political biases of reporter and translators clearly labeled.
Le Pen's National Front Party has connections to Neo-Nazis in Austria.
Rather meaningless by itself, consider for example that David Duke ran as a Republican and therefore Republicans have a connection to the KKK. Consider also that if this sort of guilt by association was applied to the French Left, the newspapers would have to devote equal column space to the problem of Jospin (a former Trotskyite=Communist, alledgedly former).
The quote from Le Pen that I used is widely publicized and was part of an interview he did over the radio. My European Politics textbook also has sizable exerpts from speeches that he gave saying that he believed non-white races were inferior and "not-equal" to that of whites. Sounds pretty racist to me.
Like I said before, the only reason that he is attacking the Muslim Community right now is because it is currently popular to do so. A little while ago, he was attacking the Jews, blaiming all of France's problems on them.
France's problems will not be solved with the election of a neo-facist crackpot. I wish you would see that.
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