The Le Pen bombshell
The nightmare of the 2002 elections still hovers in the air. The thought that the far right will once again succeed in making it to the second round is causing many Frenchmen sleepless nights.
By Daniel Ben SimonPARIS - France has been very tense recently. Eight months remain until presidential elections, and the country is already up to its neck in the "morning after." There is hardly a daily paper or a news broadcast that does not devote extensive coverage to the upcoming campaign, and there is virtually no everyday conversation that fails to mention the event that is due to take place in late April 2007.
The nightmare of the 2002 elections still hovers in the air. The thought that the far right will once again succeed in making it to the second round is causing many Frenchmen sleepless nights. A major success by Jean-Marie Le Pen is liable to drag the Fifth Republic into a constitutional crisis whose profound consequences are difficult to exaggerate.
Politicians and public opinion researchers are afraid that the socioeconomic crisis in the country and the general atmosphere of despondency are liable to help the leader of the extreme right. Le Pen tried his luck three times in the past in the presidential elections, and gained strength each time. In 1988 he received 14.4 percent of the votes, or the votes of 4,376,742 people. In the 1995 elections he received 15 percent, and in 2002 he received 16.9 percent, or 4,804,713 votes.
This time, there is a fear that the Le Pen bombshell is liable to explode in the face of France. The surveys give him 20 percent support. On all the previous occasions, they underestimated the number of votes he actually received. If that happens this time as well, the parties on the extreme right and the extreme left may become strengthened to the point that they will take over the center of gravity and power of the French Republic. At present the parties of the extreme left are making efforts to agree among themselves on one joint candidate. Surveys predict a double-digit result for such a candidate. If that happens, and the marginal parties receive 40 percent of the votes, France will no longer be the same country, and we can assume that we will be witnesses to the final chapter of the Fifth Republic.
That is why many Frenchmen consider the upcoming elections to involve a decision concerning not only the identity of the next president, but about the national identity of their country as well. Some compare the present times to 1788, the year preceding the French Revolution, believing that 2007 will look like 1789.
Emile Malet, editor of the biannual journal Passage, told Haaretz that these times are actually reminiscent of the period of the rule of Marechal Petain, which began in 1940: "People do not recall such ugly interpersonal relations and such hostility toward the government and politics. There is evil in the country. France is paying a high price for globalization, for poverty, for the rebellion in the immigrant suburbs, for crime."
Last week saw the publication of "Les Bullocrates" ("The Bubble-Bureaucrats"), a book by Jean-Francois Kahn, editor of the weekly magazine Marianne. The book places the blame for the serious crisis in France on a gang of technocrats who live in a bubble, who took care of the interests of their colleagues in the elite classes at the expense of the public. Kahn claims that these elites, on the left and the right, established golden ghettoes for themselves, neglected the public good and developed an abhorrence of the masses.
In light of this one can understand the flourishing of the extremist parties, and at the same time, the longing for new figures of leadership. That is why a relatively anonymous woman caused a major disruption in the Socialist Party and is expected to be chosen as its presidential candidate. Segolene Royal is a protest candidate. Her tremendous popularity is a reaction to the disgust that has spread among the general public with respect to that same elite-in-a-bubble.
That is also the reason for the success of Nicolas Sarkozy on the right. In spite of his many years in politics, he is considered an outsider, a son of immigrants who is not a product of the assembly line that produced the reigning oligarchy. The other presidential candidates are portrayed as the legal children of arrogant, obtuse and egoistic France.
During the upcoming elections, the question of the national identity of the country will be at stake. Quite a number of Frenchman fear the spread of the Israeli and American models, which replaced officialdom with a federation of identities and interest groups. Sarkozy is seen as someone who is liable to unite them around the fading values of the Republic. The question of religion will come up as well: One hundred-and-one years after its separation from the state, many Frenchmen are afraid that religion is returning to center stage. The law prohibiting the wearing of religious symbols inside schools did not calm the fever of the return to religion that has seized the large local Muslim community. There is a genuine fear that if the Muslims manage to organize themselves into a communal-ethnic structure, other communities are likely to follow suit.
The questions of personal security will also be of central importance in the elections. The memory of the events of last fall in the immigrant suburbs has yet to evaporate. The French are demanding law and order and total security. In recent weeks the streets of the big cities have been filled with policemen patrolling mainly the train and Metro stations, where there are many immigrants and foreigners.
And at the margins of the political drama that will determine the future of France, another drama will be taking place. Jacques Chirac, 74, will leave the public stage and for the first time in 50 years, will be a rank-and-file citizen. During his two terms as president, which lasted 12 years, this complex man made a serious contribution to the process of decline from which his country is now suffering. His decline and that of France are amazingly similar.
Why Facebook Connect?
Comment on Haaretz.com articles with your Facebook login, and share your thoughts on your own wall.
- Latest
- Most Viewed
- Most Rated
- Open all
Someone said that it takes about 50 years then any new population ethnic people in france assimilates into the community. Well in Australia we have 3rd generation ethnic people who are still muslim extremests or are simply thugs and gangsters try explaining that one?
le pen will bring the king back to france!
Just read his bio on wikipedia and you'll learn that he has became catholic even though his ancestors were jew, his grandfather converted to catholicism... What's more his wife is of Spanish origins (plus Russian through her father) and is a practicing catholic...He gave Catholic names to all his children...
Why would the French want a Jew to be president? It's bad enough that Jews are disproportionately represented in politics, law and medicine. All the Jews in France and in Europe and America need to pack all their belongings and move to Israel and never, ever return.
The French are too weak to stop the Islamist. Even if LePen or someone in his Front National movement gained leadership in France, in the end the Islamist will win. France is doomed!
He is a classic fscist with all that accompanies fascism. Fear of Muslims should not make people become hysterical. That is how Hitler came to power.
You say that the US has had left wing policies for 50 years? I lived next to them in Canada for 20 years, lived in the US itself for 10 years, and have been back in Canada for another 35 years, and I sure have not seen any left wing ideas affecting their federal politics. Their ideas of right and left correspond to most other peoples' ideas of extreme right and right respectively. Free enterprise, globalization, colonization, unilateralism, gay bashing, jingoism ... these are all basic principles of both their parties. Think they'll ever enact the Equal Rights Amendment to their constitution, giving constitutional protection to equal rights for women? Not likely! They have much that is to be admired, but also much that is to be rejected too, and their rightist views tend to bring about the latter. Remember how, in our country, each party fell over itself in the last election to distance itself (in the eyes of the electorate, although not in reality in one case) from the US?
France is no doubt in trouble with its large Muslim population. THe US is not learning any lessons from the French experience. It is stupidly admitting large numbers of Muslims.
I have listened to this energumen in Canada not long ago. I was about to crush a tomato onto his face because of his leftist attitude and biased reporting. He has been sucking up to the Swiss -- on TV - to Canada on French TV. He floats on air when congratilated by anti-semites. Now what is he talking about. Does he want to retire in France, his beloved second home? He is disgusting. DISGUSTING!
You, Jews, you can shout against France because noone has such a wonderful culture like you and noone will ever understand that. For me who could live in France for two years during my studies, that time meant already much.
Don't worry about Chirac retiring poor as his Swiss bank accounts are running over with the blood money from Saddam and now Ahmadinejad to be their mouthpiece at the UN and elsewhere! Chirac would fit in nicely with the USA's Democrat Party. Mercy!
Ill-informed article, a sprinkling of stereotypes and shallow impressions... (Ségolene an anonymous, gotta be joking!) Many responses are just Pavlovian reactions from people who need to get some anger off their chest. Hope you feel better. France has problems, no doubt, but they won't be addressed from this kind of paranoid fantasy-world stuff. By the way, just 3,000 olim a year. That must tell us something. Stick to facts, restez sur terre!
As a french jewish man, I can only back you up ... even if my last post where i explain what french jews feel have been deleted ...
Le Pen doesn't stand a chance, period. France being anti semitic is a joke. French rabbis castigated Sharon for his ignorance when he called on the french jews to move back to Israel because they were unsafe in France. French muslims being discriminated. Yes. But as much as every other wave of emmigrants that came to France: the Italians, the Portuguese, the Arabs, and now the Africans. History shows it takes France about 50 yrs to assimilate a population. Already the new generations have forgotten how to speak arabic. Very few of the young generation ever goes to mosque any more. Imams now receive their training exclusively in France, and must teach in french. The problems encountered last fall with the riots were not sectarian riots, but poverty riots. As for fearing the american model (sorry but the Israeli model, as seen from France, is simply called Apartheid), this is true. Bush and LePen have the same views on society, and France doesn't like either.
I particularly liked Malet's comment relating globalization and poverty to the problem of extremism. You will remember Hitler rode to power on the back of a worldwide depression. However, the internal problems poverty created by globalization cross racial and class lines. They produce all sorts of extreme behavior. Desperate people sometimes seek desperate anwsers. As to Kahn's book, the people in the bubble think there are simplistic anwsers, that will solve complicated problems in a very diverse world.
As far as I'm concerned France deserves whatever type of government it receives whether far-right, far-left, or Islamic theocracy. The French only have themselves to blame for allowing millions of Moslems into their country thru their insane immigration policies. All I can say is that I hope all of the French Jews immigrate and let France sink further down the drain.
wrong or right, France is my Country and I do not need to stay in Switzerland paying less taxes and making my puchases every day cheaper in France. Totally wrong: Le Pen never denied the Shoah, he was asked about his opinion of the existence of the gas chamber by the nazis and he replied that was a point of detail compared to the fact that the jews were assassinated and murdered by the nazis; I agree he was very clumsy in answering. You may be against him but at least report correctly. Finally when Jack Lang goes to Damascus and Tehran, what are you saying about him ?
If France is such a bad place for Moslem women why are they living there instead of returning back to their country where they would be !FREE! to wear their head scarf? Where they would have the !LIBERTE? to go to school? How come they choose to live in France where they don?t have these so called liberties? I wonder what the attraction is for these dedicated ! Moslem women to migrate to France or other western countries. We in the west respect your culture however we too have our own different culture which we expect it to be respected. At least in the west Moslem women can walk in the streets with a head scarf. In Iran if a western women walks the streets without one she would not survive walking more then several blocks.
Yes av you are a good jewish wishing to vote for someone questionning the existence of the death camps during ww2....what a joke, driven by fear a lot of jews are blinded and ready to back the new form of antisemitism in Europe. It seems to produce a certain jubilation for a jew to be racist and in a way, antisemitic after all these centuries of being `different`. It is the ultimate stage of integration for u. Islamophobia is growing as antijudaism was, few decades ago,but be aware of the consequences. The majority of u is pretending to ignore that most of the muslims are peacefull and calm, feeding the hatery will just make them more isolated and spread radicalism inside them, in the Huntington thesis of war of the worlds jews might become the collateral damage, pouring oil on fire might have unexpected consequences.
well, actually i do see a very disturbing parallel in the "israli model" and the the french caos of present! both seem to be on a SELFDISTRACT course, with very little time to find leadeship of vision, quality and bravery of a churchill, truman, ben gurion etc. to lead their nations out of the wilderness!!! TIME IS FAST RUNNING OUT FRIENDS.
Excuse me but France is still a non-religious country, and it's not run by Arabs. Le Pen is a true anti-semitic person, when I read that you would vote for him if you could, I really think that you don't know what you are talking about. In Le pen party there are four kind of people: those who think that france is run by comunists, those who think that its run by Arabs, those who think that its run by "THE JEWISH LOBBY" (quoting J.M LePen), and those who think that it's run by all of them. The whole world should say NO to this kind of guy.
As a french citizen, I can honestly tell you that france is not at all an antisemitic country. Neither an anti-arab country. France is just lost in her past, and people like Le Pen are so happy of it. Remember that Le Pen is the one who has denied Shoah, live on TV. he said that nazi extermination camps were "just a detail of history, and we have no real proof of it". This man is DANGEROUS.
Who ever will take power in France, I don?t see Good future for the land of Emil Zola, Victor Hugo, and Balzac
if i could vote in France i will vote le pen and i am jewish i am piss of with the moslems attitude they want the pope and every body to say sorry but they never do it them self just look at the monkey from iran what he say about us jews and nobody bother so sod you
Remember Alfred Dreyfus case. France - as well as England - has a long history of antisemtism. The current governments chief, Chirac, is antiisrael and antisemitic. Same was with De Gaulle, remember the story with the boats of Cherbourg! Fortunately we had Moca Limon at that time. And Davis F. years ago in Switzerland.
Any kind of stupidity and all sort of lies are said about Jean Marie Le Pen. In one the few last soviet countries France with 50 % of state's employees and the bla bla bla of Liberte, Fraternité and Egalité, can leave 5 millions of its citiznes with no one member at the door of the National Parlement meanwhile the last facists in the world i.e the communist (which support of course any islamic terrorist) have more than 30 members with less than 3 millions of voters. With Le Pen we would not have 7 millions at least of moslems who look more at the arabs TV every day than the French one. Just a walk in all the suburbs of France and you will believe being in Saudi Arabia.
This is a very funny article. A lot of false information...For example Segolene Royal is someone who belongs as the other one to the french elite...Her husband is even the chief of the french left side party. And I don't think that in France we are thinking to a model which oppose itself against the one that is now in Israel which is in some ways a welfare state. So...finally , I would just that wether you read "le Monde" french newspaper or "Haaretz Daily" you are always not very well informed...
French Muslims are better integrated in their country than the Muslims in UK, Spain and Germany : Findings from the latest Pew Global Attitudes Survey, which included over-samples of Muslims in four European countries, suggest that the French model can claim some success, however mixed. Some aspects of that relative success are especially striking when compared with the attitudes and experiences of Muslims in Great Britain. France is home to the largest Muslim population in Europe, an estimated 5 million persons primarily of Algerian and Moroccan extraction (since religion is not tabulated in France's census, no official estimate is available)... All in all, one might conclude that, despite their problems -- prime among them joblessness among youth generally, not just Muslim youth -- the French need take no integrationist lessons from their European neighbors. http://pewresearch.org/obdeck/?ObDeckID=50
Will France be the first radical Muslim theocracy in Europe or will the right wing be elected as a backlash against that possibility? Not a great choice either way. The French made their bed and now they will have to sleep in it.As an American I can't say I have alot of sympathy for them.
LePen may be our only hope of being saved as a free western democracy as the Moslem hordes have invaded our Christian country and spread their jihad throughout our land. We suffered immensely during their country-wide terrorist attacks. Every day there are an average of 12 attacks against Jews by Moslems in France, and Christians are also be harassed and intimidated. We face either a future civil war, or destruction of our native culture by the invading Moslems and their radical plan to take over and dominate all of France. Future forced conversions to Islam are even being planned by the Imams in many mosques in order to destroy the Christian Catholic majority in France.
******** "The Le Pen bombshell " ******** If to stop Islamo RAGgism we will ultimately need the return of the far right, SO BE IT!
Uhhh Citizen ... there is no right wing rule in the USA. Leftist principles in effect for 50 yrs. USA however, still ticks along as the largest economy in the world due to RELATIVELY lower taxes and massive govt debt ( that the citizens will have to pay for eventually.) Unemployment in France and Germany BOTH are a disgrace. Extremely high numbers of unemployed YOUTH ( especially immigrants ) thanks to draconian ( or if you prefer...progressive left) labor laws. Remember the riots in the streets ? Or do you actually live in France? I suspect not!!!
bothered to react to your previous message.
Notice that France's economic and social indexes are all in the green, despite the right wing french trying to say otherwise. Compare unemployment data in France and Germany, for example, or unemployment numbers combined with people sitting in prison in the US. And in France, all kids (and adults) have access to health care. Don't get me wrong, I am not a communist, and I hope the French will have learned their lesson and stopped voting for the far left wing (though this is not likely), but as somebody who lived in both France and the US, given a choice between the left-wingedness of the French and the right-wingedness of the Americans, give me the former any day.
Karim writes that the right rules in France and in John's world the right is in power in Israel. Gentlemen you both exemplify the brain fog that I warned was rampant. The right is in power NOWHERE in the world. They stand for extremely limited govt.Is either of you still capable of grasping the concept of FAMILIES helping families, rather than Big Brother stepping in and mucking and messing things up ?
it happened last time, and who predicted Royal`s rise in the socialist party, let me make another prediction: Le Pen will never win the elections in France. He could go up to the second tour this time as well, and this should be worrying, but he won`t get elected. Hopefully, after his death, his party will disintegrate. As to Segolene Royal, she is not a nobody on the rise. She is a very charismatic person, and will hopefully lead the left to victory. Maybe it is worth while pointing out, rather, that the two main candidates of the left for these elections are - for now - a woman and a Jew (Laurent Fabius).
the votes, and that's when he was running only against Chirac. Many left wing people voted Chirac at the time, despite themselves, in order to prevent the rise of Le Pen. As somebody who lived in France at the time, I can tell you that the majority of the french were shocked and dismayed to see Le Pen at the second tour. His second place in the first tour, which got him to the second tour, was due mainly to a segmentation of the left, which ate up left wing voices and put the socialist candidate slightly lower than Le Pen. So the chances of there being a fascist regime in France are null. On a completely different issue, the arab vote will only lower the results of Le Pen, so please don't get things mixed up. The arab vote will also lower the results of Sarkozy, by the way. This being said, the arabs are the ones who vote the less, like most minorities (e.g. the blacks in America).
How do you lock them up in barges. When you fix that tell the Israelis how to fix it all to meet your standards.
So give me a break...
france tries to hide the numbers of immigrants.the accepted figure is 5-6 millions.it may well be 8 million.and they are a fast growing population.the native french population is stagnant.there is big trouble in the future for france.
fill the prisons.they will insist in having a say in french foreign policy that will ultimately be a veto.they will not be a part of the european knowledge economy that is so essential to the continent's future.they will be the drawers of water and the hewers of wood and that will make them might unhappy.
is being held hostage by the middle east minority in it midst.but it is too late.french hubris and european leftists have let the immigrants into their lands.they will never assimilate and they will be a perpetual torture to europe.
The logos of the French revolution are very far behind. Liberte ? yes the freedom of preventing the moslem girls from dressing themselves as suited decent & honorable in their religion, & kicking them out of school if they don't comply. Egalite ? yes the equality of education & social services between the rich neighbourhoods & the poor ones were the immigrants are located. Fraternite ? with whom ? the immigrants. Forget it. The laws are being changed to 'tighten up' the security on them & squeeze them more & more. There is no need for the exreme right to win. The right that is currently in power is already doing the job !
Eurabia wins. a combination of time and fait accompli.
I don't know where this author obtains his information from. Contre his opinion, few daily conversations refer to the impending election, and hardly anyone has sleepless nights over it. Segolene Royal is not a protest cadidate just because the overwhelming majority of those inclined to vote left of centre prefer her to unsuccessful candidates like Jospin. Contemporary France is not the equivalent of the last days of Weimar. It is about time that Israeli citizens and authors viewed the world as Israeli-centric. It is laughable to think that people in France are worried about an 'Israeli model', even if anyone had ever heard of such.
Far right, far left, nothing more than labels. Even if the " far right " or" extreme right " as the editoral calls them gets elected it won"t matter. Rest assured that NO political party can fix the mess left behind by generations of quasi-Marxism that that has been spread like the bubonic plague via the universities and the media. Critical thinking has been replaced by a permanent PARALYZING FOG that has overtaken everyones brains. So we get political analysis up the wazoo, and no corrective measures undertaken by WHOEVER is in power. All they can do is keep telling us lies. Even a small dose of truth now is enough to cause general strikes and rioting in the streets.