An answer to a private question from SI poster!! Is vote for Le Pen is an anti Arab vote? Is this vote a protest vote against global terrorism and a reaction to religious extremism in France?
The fact that Le Pen got close to 18% of the popular
vote and Chirac around 20% is an indication that
racial powers are on the rise in France and possible
in Europe. Le Pen's victory could cut both ways. Known
for his anti-immigrant views, it is conceivable that
the French decided to cast an anti-Arab vote?
They certainly don't love their unruly and
unassimilated Arabs (with the exception of Zidane),
who are now nearly 10% of the population, but casting
an anti Arab vote also meant legitimising the EUROPE’S
biggest Nazi party and undoubtedly it has long been
France’s National Front, led by Jean-Marie Le Pen.
Jews may have supported Le Pen in the first round for
the sake of him being so anti-Arab but he is equally
anti-Semitic.
Jean Marie Le Pen, the leader of the National Front,
has often spoken about the presence of so many Jews at
key crossroads of the country. 'The Jews hold the most
senior positions in print journalism,' he once said,
'in the electronic media, in academia and in the
economy and have questioned as leader of the far right
as to how did they get so rich?'
The fragmented and infighting of the Left helped
propel Le Pen to win the first round but the second
round the odds are stacked against him. It is not
important as to the extent of Chirac’s victory but
extreme right will certainly get a huge boost in
Europe from this victory. Joerg Haider and Le Pen, his
exceptional political come back, is not an ordinary
event in a Europe that is trying hard to become United
States of Europe. In the next round on April 4th, I
see a real of possibility of a previously unthinkable
unholy alliance between France’s 10% Arab immigrants,
the powerful Jewish lobby, Left and Liberals united by
a common purpose to defeat Le Pen.
Le Pen himself has a long personal history on the far
right. As a student he was a great admirer of Marshal
Pétain, who ran the Nazi approved regime in
non-occupied France during World War Two. Le Pen was a
Poujadist (extreme right wing) deputy in the French
National Assembly in the 1950s, and fought against
anti-colonialists in Algeria. Active in far right
politics throughout the 1960s, he helped found the
National Front in 1972. Anyone who doubts what the
National Front stands for should recall that in the
1980s Le Pen boasted that the Holocaust was ‘a mere
detail of history’. He has refused to withdraw that
remark, and made many more similar statements since.
In 1998 he publicly argued that he believed in the
‘inequality of races’ and he has made repeated
anti-Semitic comments on French TV. |
