24-10-2003 06:18									#1
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From the Guardian

quote: Le Pen in sight of a regional triumph As French far-right leader begins regional election campaign, many fear his party could gain control of a large part of the country Jon Henley in Nice Friday September 19, 2003 The Guardian There are many grounds for mistrusting Jean-Marie Le Pen, but electoral prediction is not generally among them. When he hazards a guess the veteran leader of France's far right is rarely wrong. And this, he said yesterday, is the most winnable election of all his long career. Even his opponents agree that next spring's regional polls, the first since the presidential and parliamentary elections last year which produced the biggest upset in the country's postwar political history, will probably give the pugnacious National Front president his greatest chance yet of a historic victory. "I see things very clearly," he said yesterday, formally beginning his campaign for the presidency of the Provence, Alpes and Côte d'Azur (Paca) region before a battery of TV cameras in a chartered yacht replete with champagne and canapes in the Baie des Anges, off Nice. "There will be three major contenders in the second round," he said. "Neither the right nor the left will withdraw - as they did to wreck our chances last year - and they certainly won't merge their lists. "I am confident that here, finally, we will emerge as the winners of a three-way battle." Many observers think Mr Le Pen may be right. The anti-immigrant Front has come close to controlling France's 20 regional councils before, notably at the last polls in 1998, when several conservative council presidents tried to make ultimately unsuccessful deals with far-right leaders in an effort to retain their seats. This time its chances of winning an outright victory, particularly in its heartlands in eastern and southern France, may be even better. The Socialist party is still reeling from the events of last year, when their presidential candidate, Lionel Jospin, was knocked out by Mr Le Pen, and their government humiliated by a landslide conservative victory in parliamentary polls. The early flush of Jean-Pierre Raffarin's centre-right government has faded, and its approval rating is falling steadily on issues such as its allegedly inept handling of this summer's heatwave and its unpopular reforms of state pensions, the civil service and the national health system. A senior Front official, Carl Lang, estimated yesterday that the party should reach the second round of the two-stage elections in "probably 16 or 17 regions". In 1998 it won an average of 15.25% of the vote and returned 275 regional councillors; even its opponents expect it to do a great deal better this time. It could also be helped by a change in the voting laws introduced by the government earlier this year. Aimed primarily at spoiling the chances of minority parties, many of the bill's measures were ruled unconstitutional, and what remains of the legislation, giving the second-round winner a bonus of 25% of all council seats, "could now really work to our advantage", said Marine Le Pen, the Front's vice-president and her father's likely successor. Nowhere is the risk of the Front gaining its first taste of serious power higher than in Paca, where Mr Le Pen won a record 28% of the vote in the second round of last year's presidential election. Unemployment there, at 11.5%, is more than two points higher than the national average, encouraging support for the far-right. Thierry Mariani, a conservative MP who has successfully fought off Front challenges in his southern constituency Vaucluse, said the prospects of Mr Le Pen becoming regional president - with control over a large budget for economic development, education, transport and culture - were "terrifyingly real". "Here the Front can count on as many votes as both the right and the left," he said. "It would of course be a catastrophe: every regional decision would be politicised." Mr Mariani knows what he is talking about. In the four southern French town halls it has controlled, Orange, Vitrolles, Marignane and Toulon, the Front has not hesitated to implement its policies of national preference for French citizens in jobs, housing and social benefits, and to promote "traditional" French culture. Subsidies have been withdrawn from rap and ethnic musicians and from festivals which showed gay movies; cultural centres which held "non-French" events have been closed; schools stopped from offering special meals to Jewish and Muslim children; municipal libraries banned from subscribing to leftwing publications. In Vitrolles the Front town council briefly offered an illegal £500 "baby subsidy" to couples who added to their family - providing that both parents were of white European origin. Michel Vauzelle, the current Socialist president of the regional council, is equally pessimistic. "There's a very big risk," he said. "Neither the left nor the right can win by saying, 'If the worst comes to the worst, we'll merge to keep out the Front.' That would hand them victory on a plate." Blinking in the sun on the deck of the Star Côte d'Azur yesterday, Mr Le Pen brimmed with an unaccustomed confidence. "True, the president of a region does not have the same powers as the president of the republic," he said. "But victory here will send a very, very strong signal. "After the earthquake of the presidential elections, it will mark the beginning of fundamental change for France."

Summary: The Left is still in shambles of its utter defeat last year. The right is seeing its popularity fade quickly. As a result, Le Pen is highly likely to gain many votes in the local and regional elections next spring.

I think it is actually good that such upcoming victory gets discussed a few months beforehand. Last time, we were completely taken by surprise by Le Pen's result; we actually became aware of the danger one week before the election.

The problem is that we can be aware all we want, we won't turn the tide if nothing is done about it. The major left-wing party, the Socialist Party, dwells in internal struggles for power and is unable to really oppose Chirac's policies. The Greens and the Communists are nowhere to be seen, and they won't participate in changing the tide any. The centrist party is the only one voicing opposition seriously, but it is hampered by its ideological closeness with Chirac's and by its small voter-base.

OTOH, Chirac's party (who has swallowed all of the Republican right) displeases more and more. The police minister is less and less successful in shifting the media's attention from the utter amateurishness of this government. Our wonderful cabinet is able to angry everyone: European partners, far right nutjobs, immigrants, workers... Only the police minister seems to please the population, but this popularity fades.

What this means is a terrible mistrust towards ordinary politicians, and the winds of change will be expressed through votes for Le Pen and votes for the radical left. The radical left will be probably higher than before, but Le Pen's attractiveness to desperate people is much higher

	24-10-2003 06:24									#2
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Hopefully the Socialist Party will regroup quickly and save the situation. Assuming it saves itself first. In Greece everything shows that the Socialist Party will lose and the Conservative Party will win. What's more alarming is L.A.O.S. The Popular Orthodox Alarm (It's acronyme means "The People" - sic) a new party which gallopes give it almost 2% of the votes. It ressembles Le Pen.

Last edited by Bereta_Eder on 24-10-2003 at 06:56

	24-10-2003 06:27									#3
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I'm glad to see Chirac fading in popularity, but it would be horrible see the National Front replace him. Still I would tend to think France is for the most part safe, because even in the case of a large FN upswing in votes, as the second round of last year's election showed most Frenchmen still reject him.

	24-10-2003 06:34									#4
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Sure, this scum won't rule on France anytime soon, but there is a very serious threat that he wins Marseille's region. And if Le Pen + the radical left ever equate 40% of the votes, it would mean that 40% of the people who actually bother to vote reject the current political class as a whole. And this is a sign of great distress. As well as it is the sign of great danger, because Le Pen will have more room to spill his hate and to act on it.

	24-10-2003 06:35									#5
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Spiffor, you say communists are nowhere to be seen.
So which party (ies) constitute the radical left in France?

	24-10-2003 06:42									#6
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The worst is that the political elite doesn't seem concerned, except on air.

Le Pen's party has consistently been used by politicians to weaken the other, or it has consistently been ignored when party X took potshots at party Y.

There was a fantastic election-tweaking recently, for local and regional elections. These local elections will elect the leaders of our Départements (something similar to your counties, there are 99 of them), and there will be an election the same day to elect the leaders of the Régions (each has 4-5 Départements in it, there are 22 of them).
If several parties decide to be on each own's in the election for a Département, they can't merge and campaign commonly in the election for the corresponding Région. This is great for Chirac's monopolistic party, but it sucks for the divided Left. And of course, where Chirac's party will lose in popularity, there will be no united Left to oppose the tide of Le Pen

	24-10-2003 06:48									#7
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quote: Originally posted by paiktis22 Spiffor, you say communists are nowhere to be seen. So which party (ies) constitute the radical left in France?

The French Communists (the party to which I belong) belong to the "Republican Left", i.e the left-wing parties who acknowledge our representative democracy, and who try to have a role in the government.

The far-left parties do not recognize our representative democracy, and they don't try to exercize power. Basically, they are either protest organizations (Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire or LCR), or true revolutionaries whose only use for elections is to get themselves known (Lutte Ouvrière or LO; notice that Chegitz belongs to LO's daughter shop in the US called The Spark).

Each of these parties was worth about 5% in the presdential election last year. There are several very small other radical left parties, but they are completely unsignificant in comparison to the both I mentioned.

	24-10-2003 06:52									#8
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I see. Although I find it strange that those parties do not recognize the parliamentary democracy but take part in the elections, if I understood correctly.

	24-10-2003 06:57									#9
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IIUC, these parties do not consider elections as a valid way to seize power, since only the revolution can do so.
However, the LCR is not very serious with its revolution, and is rather a "cool" party for students, or away to express one's frustration for people really living a crap life.
LO is a serious revolutionary party, whose members are well versed in communist knowledge and are active in spreading the revolutionary idea. Most of the members would be ready to take the Kalashnikovs the day revolution arrives. Elections are a way for them to get publicity and potentially new members, although their propaganda carefully forgets to mention the bloody aspect of a revolution (it rather emphasizes on what is wrong in our society).

	24-10-2003 07:06									#10
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Ah bon, Je vois... Je vais aller me coucher maintenent puis'que Je suis tout a fait mors de fatigue. A demain.

	24-10-2003 07:10									#11
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So how much damage could FN do if they controlled Marseillies?

	24-10-2003 07:21									#12
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This guy's "far-right"? I didn't know being anti-immigrant was far right, but God forbid this guy withdraw "subsidies" to rap artists. Yeah, he's a rabid right winger...

	24-10-2003 07:51									#13
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The Guardian is such a trash paper filled with useless political hacks who ignore every piece of evidience which controdictes their own bigited political views. Wouldn't it be better to spend your time reading a paper which shows both sides (the New York Times or the London Times comes to mind) instead of one which admites to being an "activist paper" which deliberately pushes the political agendas of it's owners?

BTW Le Pen doesn't seem to be a facist at all. He does say stupid things from time to time so he shouldn't be in political power. The real problem is the political elites who think it is their god given right to ignore the will of the people and simply keep advancing their mindless ideology. If the political elites would do a half way decent job then people like Le Pen wouldn't pop up but since the elites are stupid arrogant bastards we shall continue to see Le Pen and people like him.

	24-10-2003 08:55									#14
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God, what an incredible bunch of fearmongering on the part of the Guardian. If you don't trust the people's vote, then why don't just you switch to a dictatorship?

	24-10-2003 09:13									#15
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Why don't you just just pay attention at the most important thing: WHY is Le Pen getting votes?

	24-10-2003 14:31									#16
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quote: Why don't you just just pay attention at the most important thing: WHY is Le Pen getting votes?

Because the French are a bunch of nasty racists.

	24-10-2003 14:34									#17
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Told you so.

	24-10-2003 14:34									#18
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I thought that already been done:
* High unemployment
* No trust in the established political elite

Can you think of any more (besides the fact that rural people is a reactionary class). Le Pen gives the typical populist right wing answer; fight crime and blame the immigrants.

Berzerker: Do you know about this guy at all? That some of the parties achievment is such 'small' things no support to rap-music is that the party mostly has control on the local level. As I remembered it, during the last election he wanted France to give up "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" as the republican mantra and replace it with the old Vichy-regime slogan of "Work, Family, and Fatherland."

The national fronts agenda includes things like:
* You will no longer be citizien by birth unless you have at least one french parent. Only way to citizenship is through naturalisation that includes tests and inquires into the persons morals. The citizenship could later be revoked if the person commits a crime.
* The front wants to add to the french constitution a 'preference national' (national preference) for job-openings, health care, education, housing etc.
* Reinstating the death penalty
* Some shady press-laws that includes that you'd have to pass certain 'tests' in order to call yourself a journalist
* On foreign politics, he was a supporter of Saddam Hussein and enemy of the US and Israel.

Le Pen himself has been convicted on a number of occations for things like holocaust denial (something that's illegal in france but he wants it to be legal), antisemitism and for making jokes about the concentration camps.

That's just a short list.

	24-10-2003 14:36									#19
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1. I chose the Guardian Article because it is the only English speaking article I found that covers this topic. I was simply too lazy to translate one of the numerous articles that have been written in the French press about this recently.

2. Le Pen is far right. At least, in the French political spectrum, there is no significant party more at the right to him. The only things you American conservatives (despite being notably more to the right than your European counterparts) could agree with are the suspension of abortion, and a radically free-market economy. I don't think you would feel any solidarity with the racism, religious bigotry, antidemocratic bigotry (Le Pen is the one who gathers all the nostalgics of Pétain) that underlie his party.

Since the elections last year, he has tried to give himself the image of a reputable candidate, but every now and then, a slip of the tongue from him or one of the top party members will reveal the deep racism behind him. Just look at what his party tried to do in the city of Orange (one of the few places it ever had direct power): they gave a financial help only to white people to have kids. They stopped helping the Orange culture festival, the only thing that made the city known nationwide, because the culture was deemed degenerate.

Le Pen has made it clear that he intends to concentrate immigrants in camps to expel them. He also strives for removing France out of the EU. And I'm not even talking about his ideas for women: interdiction of abortion, and a "motherly wage" paid by the State so that they remain at home and do the only thing they're good for, raising children

3. I actually don't blame people for voting Le Pen when I see the patheticness of our political class. I am merely warning you that you will take cheap shots at France next spring because of Le Pen's success.
The reasons why people vote for Le Pen are simple:

- The corruption of the political system remains one of the main reasons our politicians aren't trusted. Although the recent State-funded financing of political parties has considerably lowered this corruption, every major party sees a scandal pop up every now and then.
Only Le Pen's party is immuned to that, because it had very little actual power, and because it gets huge private donations from the wealthy among its enthusiasts (many rich people have given their heritage to Le Pen's party, which means to Le Pen himself).

- Our right-wing government has shown that Left and Right can follow different social policies, but it is still widely believed that they are all the same bunch. Besides, both sides completely suck in their way to comply to Europe (if you don't intend to obey free-market policies, don't vote for free-market rules you morons!), and their economic policies are hardly different. As a result, our employement situation is closely bound to the international conjoncture, and it is bad right now.

The Left has lost last time because it couldn't adress the growing feeling of criminality in the population. Many people were tired of the lack of security in France, and the Le Pen vote mirrors that. Since the Right took over, the police minister has been very active in have a security policy close to Le Pen's, i.e "beat the gangster to a bloody pulp, that's always the solution". This redefinition of the police's mission, as well as the media complacency shat up the feeling of criminality (criminality actually lowered during the reign of the Left, and it raised during the reign of the Right, but nobody cares about the actual figures).

However, the Right is making the same mistakes as the Left, but on employement issues. Many companies have been closed, several have been wildly closed (all material being moved overnight) as opposed to the law. The Right can't adress that, and is financially hampered by the already high deficit and lowered taxes. To have its free-market policies be appreciated by the population, the Right always uses a scapegoat to justify them. For some time, teachers were considered in the TV as lazy slobs. Then it was the civil servants. It will soon be the jobless. Of course, the right alienates many of these people, because they simply ignore the deep crises these categories are experiencing. Exactly the way the Left ignored the feeling of criminality, thinking it would vanish by itself thanks to the growth.

	24-10-2003 14:41									#20
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quote: * On foreign politics, he was a supporter of Saddam Hussein and enemy of the US and Israel.

It's good to know that he's well in tune with the French mainstream.

	24-10-2003 14:43									#21
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Well, OK. Got me there!

	24-10-2003 14:56									#22
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quote: Originally posted by Shi Huangdi So how much damage could FN do if they controlled Marseillies?

It's a bit more complex than that.

There are many layers of government in France, each with the corresponding election:

- The President is meant to give France's vision and to represent France abroad. He's supposed to have great powers, but not to be busy with daily issues. The president is elected directly by the people on the whole territory.

- The government is elected by the lower House of the Parliament (assemblée nationale). Each member of the Assemblée is elected in a district of ca 100,000 inhab. The government is supposed to manage France's daily issues.

- The regional parliaments have a list-election on the whole territory of the region. Their missions are local development, some culture, financing senior highschools and bonuses for senior-high students, regionwide infrastructure. Since the State is taking fewer engagements than before, Regional Parliaments tend to take more initiatives: for example, the Alsace region is now the one that finances the building of the TGV line between Paris and Strasbourg.

- The Départements have a parliament whose members are elected on tiny districts. They have power regarding transportation maintenance, financing of junior highschool, helps towards the health system.

- The [u]Cities[/i] are the most powerful layer of local government. They are responsible for the daily management of a city, but they also can hire a local police (with limited powers) to complement the National Police, they distribute the form of wefare that goes to the most desperate, they subsidise many cultural happenings, they marry people, etc.

	24-10-2003 14:58									#23
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quote: Originally posted by Azazel quote: * On foreign politics, he was a supporter of Saddam Hussein and enemy of the US and Israel. It's good to know that he's well in tune with the French mainstream.

We did not support Saddam that much. At least, not openly. Many people refused to associate with Saddam, but the Americans are so clouded with their "you're with us or against us" mentality that they haven't understood that people could both oppose Saddam and the war in Iraq.

	24-10-2003 15:00									#24
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There's a lot of things he's not that open about. For obvious reasons.

	24-10-2003 15:00									#25
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Here, let me help you get the stick out of your ass. It was a joke.

	24-10-2003 15:04									#26
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(Le Pen actually visited Saddam Hussein once, but I suppose that was at least partly to rubb some durt in the face of the US.)

	24-10-2003 15:08									#27
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quote: Originally posted by Kropotkin There's a lot of things he's not that open about. For obvious reasons.

Yep. Like his ultra free-market policies and the proposed complete privatization of our health and retirement system. Go figure, he avoids to talk too much about it to these voters who'd lose everything if it became a reality

He hasn't mentioned the mason-Jew conspiracy in a while too. It seems he doesn't want to spoil his chances of victory only to please the petainists and reactionary catholics, despite they were the core of its voting basis for a long time.

	24-10-2003 15:47									#28
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Vote for LO of course I know of their British sister party, Workers Fight. And LO/LCR do a cool fete near Paris ever June

	24-10-2003 16:21									#29
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quote: and a "motherly wage" paid by the State so that they remain at home and do the only thing they're good for, raising children

That to me sounds an excellent plan. Western nations tend to undervalue parental care of children. Subsidising it will make a difference.

	24-10-2003 16:32									#30
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quote: Originally posted by Provost Harrison Vote for LO of course I know of their British sister party, Workers Fight. And LO/LCR do a cool fete near Paris ever June

It sucks compared to the wonderful Fete de l'Humanité (the big popular party organized by the French Communist, but chock-full of non communists who are looking for a great moment)