Daily Mail endorses Marine Le Pen

[Religious Dick]

Despite her flaws, the only responsible vote in France next Sunday is one for Marine Le Pen

By Richard Waghorne

PUBLISHED: 06:26 EST, 20 April 2012 | UPDATED: 09:20 EST, 20 April 2012


France?s politics would appear to be in deceptively rude health. As Sunday?s first stage of the country?s two-round presidential election approaches, the vital indicators return vivid signs of life.

Mass meetings in Paris and elsewhere have drawn numbers and passion hard to imagine in some parts of an exhausted Western Europe. Online politics has made an impact for the first time. There is a choice on the ballot paper of ten candidates, ranging as fully from right to left as from plausible to eccentric.

France?s rarely quiescent intellectuals have offered their customary profusion of commentary on the country?s choices.


What France has not confronted honestly is the likelihood that this is the final French election for some time in which the country will vote on its future with an acceptable degree of control over its own destiny. The erosion of French self-government has been commissioned from within and awaits to be ratified from without.

Nicholas Sarkozy has campaigned on the theme of a ?Strong France?. His speeches consciously allude to the Fifth Republic?s founder General de Gaulle, praising an ?Eternal France? Sarkozy himself has never been in danger of embodying. Rather, he is the latest architect of the decline of French democracy to something bordering on irrelevance.

The most urgent, the most assiduously avoided challenge facing France is the erosion of its self-government. Sarkozy?s European policy has abetted the long-desired European federalism of the French political class, through means of government by decree from Brussels and the outright replacement of recalcitrant governments in Greece and Italy.

In other European countries, the surface pretence of politics as usual has only been perpetuated by the craven compliance of hostage governments, as in Ireland. The fundamental deceit is that France herself is immune from the consequences of her president?s betrayal of other ancient European nations.

As the election campaign has demonstrated, this is not so to any extent which would return decisions over economic matters and identity to the French people. France?s banking system is critically exposed to the debts of the delinquent European margins, confirmed in Sarkozy?s last year in office by the trauma of a sovereign downgrade in a country where banks hold a status akin to proxies of the State. This very central standing in French public life, with its implicit expectation of support in crisis, was not enough to convince ratings-agencies of their durability - precisely because it is in question whether the French State possesses the capacity to deliver such support if required.

Although it is unlikely that this will come to pass, should Sarkozy secure re-election he would in all probability find himself faced with the appalling question of whether France herself could survive the humiliation of direction from Berlin and Brussels in the threatened eventuality of Spanish or Italian default.


Much as Friedrich Hayek caustically referred to ?socialists of all parties? in the age of British muddy centrism shared between Labour and the Conservatives before the rise of Margaret Thatcher, one might see the choice of leading candidates in France as that between Eurofederalists of various parties. Neither Nicholas Sarkozy nor the likely victor Socialist Fran?ois Hollande differ in their deference to ever-closer union. Much of their respective programmes must accordingly be discounted entirely as the outlines of an agenda they would never give themselves the liberty to execute.

The insurgent hard-left challenger Jean-Luc M?lenchon numbers the old French Communist Party within his alliance, calls for revolution in Europe, and speaks to supporters who bring Soviet flags to his rallies. The only other candidates polling in double figures, save one, is the centrist Fran?ois Bayrou who combines many of his opponents? defects with few redeeming virtues of his own.

In present circumstances, given present choices, the only responsible vote in France next Sunday is a vote for Marine Le Pen, leader of France?s National Front. This requires to be immediately qualified in several important respects:

Le Pen?s protectionist economic policies are both foolish and futile. Her campaign has often been poor and indistinct. This is particularly culpable during a European crisis which ought to have given her party an opportunity unparalleled since inception and suggests serious limits in her own capabilities.

Her efforts to regulate the political instincts of her party mitigate without cancelling out present reminders of its unacceptable past, most notable among which are her vocal and hot-headed father Jean-Marie Le Pen.

Her stalwart defence of France?s right to perpetuate its national identity has forced Nicholas Sarkozy to give the issue a seriousness of attention he failed to grant it while office, but has sometimes been made by appeal to the lower instincts of the French electorate rather than the higher.

Marine Le Pen remains, among an imperfect choice in urgent times, the only candidate capable of saving France?s control over her finances, borders, and identity.

She is the only candidate available to conservative voters advancing the case for an exit from the Euro, the one measure which if executed carefully might yet save France from being swamped by foreign debts amassed elsewhere in a European project largely of its own making.

While Nicholas Sarkozy raises the prospect of securing French borders through withdrawal from the Schengen area, she possesses the requisite disdain for European entanglements which he all too comprehensively does not. Her defence of French national identity in the country with Europe?s most numerous Muslim minority is credible, whereas Sarkozy?s betrays his increasingly impotent opportunism.

France next elects a president to the ?lys?e Palace in 2017. The most urgent question in this election ought to have been whether the next will matter much. There is no good reason as things stand to believe that France will escape the impotent slide into the morass of multiculturalism and bankrupt late European social democracy.

 
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2132611/French-elections-2012-Marine-Le-Pen-responsible-vote-France.html#ixzz1sld8crx6

[Xavier_Onassis]

Le Pen's father is a disgusting and racist Fascist.

The party Le Pen belongs to is of a similar nature.

I doubt that the endorsement of a  British tabloid will make any serious difference in France's elections. Le Pen could not get a majority, and there would of course be a run off, which she would lose, just as her father did once.

[Religious Dick]

Anti-Euro Le Pen?s Record Vote to Weigh on French Election
By Tara Patel and Mark Deen on April 23, 2012 Tweet Facebook LinkedIn Google Plus 0 Comments
Almost one in five French voters cast their ballots for National Front leader Marine Le Pen?s call to abandon the euro and turn her country into an anti- immigrant fortress.

While that wasn?t enough to propel her into the final round of the presidential election, her party?s record 17.9 percent showing make her supporters key to the May 6 runoff between President Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist Francois Hollande.

?We have blown apart the monopoly of the two parties of banking, finance and multinationals,? Le Pen said last night, declining to endorse either candidate. ?Nothing will ever be the same.?

A lawyer by training, Le Pen, 43, led a campaign against both Hollande and Sarkozy, pledging to bring back the French franc, tighten borders against immigration and pull away from European treaties. While she failed to shock the establishment by making it into the second round like her father did in 2002, she still got about 68 percent more votes than he did in 2007. Her views are likely to color the election debate.

Already yesterday Sarkozy touched on immigration and crime as issues he is likely to focus on in his campaign, referring to a ?crisis of immigration? and calling for greater border controls. National Front voters should ?look closely at what they want,? French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said today. The choice is between an excessive welfare state proposed by Hollande and a competitive country under Sarkozy, he said.

Europe Bashing
For his part, Hollande blamed Sarkozy?s economic and social policies for the rise of the National Front.

Hollande won 28.6 percent of the vote against 27.1 percent for Sarkozy, the interior ministry said. Le Pen said she will outline in Paris on May 1 her position for second-round voting.

Le Pen, a member of the European Parliament, has concentrated a large part of her campaigning against Europe and has repeatedly criticized the close relations between Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Europe is a ?country-killing grinding machine, a machine that has killed our prosperity and our democracy,? she told supporters in Henin-Beaumont in northern France April 15.

She has blamed the euro for France?s 12-year-high jobless rate and factory closures, rejecting a December treaty agreed to by European countries for closer fiscal ties to resolve the region?s sovereign debt crisis.

?I would review all of the European treaties and rip up the new ones that Nicolas Sarkozy has accepted behind the backs of the French people,? Le Pen said. ?The horrible stability pact condemns us to pay endlessly for the countries that are victim of the euro.?

Taking Back Power
Le Pen would cut French debt partly through national central bank lending. She?d seek savings by cutting European Union payments, raising company taxes, and cracking down on welfare fraud.

?Sarkozy and Hollande and their allies are in favor of the Europe of Brussels; I prefer France,? Le Pen has said, pledging to take back powers transferred to Europe including currency, borders, trade, industrial policy, immigration and justice.

Le Pen has tried to remake the party, which was historically based on anti-immigration policies, in a bid to attract more mainstream voters who blame Europe and porous borders for many of the country?s woes.

France accepts about 200,000 immigrants a year, about 0.3 percent of the country?s population. Le Pen wants to cut that to 10,000 annually.

Disconnected
Her father, who headed the National Front until last year, made it into the second round of the French presidential election in 2002, losing to Jacques Chirac, and garnered 10.4 percent of the vote in 2007. Jean-Marie was condemned by a French court in 1991 for denying the Holocaust.

?The economic, political and social situation is very serious,? her father said after last night?s results were announced. ?There needs to be a return of policies that put France first.?

In campaign speeches, Le Pen has taken aim at both Sarkozy and Hollande, accusing them of looking out for the interests of privileged Parisians and neglecting concerns of average French workers. Bankers, media personalities, multinational bosses and soccer stars have come under Le Pen?s criticism for being rich while ?honest? workers suffer.

Sarkozy and Hollande are ?completely disconnected from the French people,? she said. ?I am the only one in this election who offers another choice.?

?Rejecting the System?
Winning over as many as possible of her voters will be key to Sarkozy?s chances of beating Hollande, who can count on the support of Communist-backed candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon and three other first-round contenders.

?Le Pen supporters are rejecting the system,? said Laurent Dubois, a professor at the Institute of Political Studies in Paris. ?If Sarkozy tries to appeal to them, he?ll give up the center.?

While many Le Pen supporters may abstain, some say they?ll throw their lot with Sarkozy. About 57 percent of Le Pen voters will back Sarkozy in the second round, 23 percent will abstain and 20 percent will back Hollande, according to BVA?s survey.

?I voted for Marine Le Pen in the first round, and I will vote Sarkozy in the second,? Roger Trasleglise, 83, a retired jeweler, said yesterday after casting his ballot in Paris. ?She had no chance of going on to the second round, but still she could give her ideas to the winner.?

To contact the reporters on this story: Tara Patel in Paris at tpatel2@bloomberg.net; Mark Deen in Paris at markdeen@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Vidya Root at vroot@bloomberg.net

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-04-22/anti-euro-le-pen-s-record-vote-set-to-weigh-on-french-election

[Xavier_Onassis]

LePen lost, with an underwhelming 19.7% If you come in third, you are out. She came in third, and she is out. Adieu!

http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/22/world/europe/france-election/index.html