Joan of Arc hijacked as Le Pen backs in adulation of thousands

POOR Joan of Arc. The Maid of Orleans must turn in her grave every May 1st, for since 1988 the extreme right-wing National Front (FN) has expropriated her along with other symbols of Frenchness like the tricolour and the Marseillaise for its own noisy propaganda.

Up to 20,000 frontistes came out yesterday to celebrate Saint Joan and the day of workers, pausing to lay flowers in front of her equestrian statue in the Place des Pyramides, listening with rapt attention to National Front leader, Mr Jean-Marie Le Pen, as he held forth from the steps of the Paris Opera.

They wore red white and blue, and many sported "I love Jean-Marie" badges, with a heart replacing the word "love". Since President Jacques Chirac called a surprise general election on April 21st, the FN had been somewhat sidelined; yesterday's rally brought Mr Le Pen back into the limelight.

Both the ruling centre-right and the left-wing alliance have denounced the FN as a dangerous movement that feeds on anti-semitism, racism and hatred. By treating the election battle as an old-fashioned left-right contest, they hoped to marginalise the FN. Initially, the tactic seemed to work.

But this past week, the Front's popularity has surged, and polls now suggest it will receive at least 5 per cent of the vote in the May 25th and June 1st elections. However, France's complex electoral law would give the extreme right party only a handful of seats in the 577-strong parliament.

To prove the FN's concern for social welfare, they even included a contingent of homeless people in their May Day procession.

The FN has replaced the Communist Party as the first party of French workers, and it is also the most popular movement among the unemployed.

The FN has a seemingly fool-proof solution for joblessness: deport three million immigrants from France, pay half a million French women to stay at home with their children, et voila, no more unemployment.

They want a constitutional amendment to guarantee preference to Frenchmen "of French origin" for jobs, housing and welfare payments. The FN would also reinstate the death penalty, make it more difficult to obtain French nationality and tax employers who hire foreigners.

But it was the "threat" of Europe that most fired Mr Le Pen's imagination yesterday. "We are talking about the very existence of France," he told the cheering crowd. "If we don't end this slippage towards a European-Maastricht vision, we will lose France in the Eurocentric magma.

Only two French political parties, the FN and the Communists, are openly anti-Europe, although the Socialists are now moving in that direction. Mr Le Pen denounced President Chirac for "seeking to betray France for Maastricht, for a single currency which is the instrument of servitude".

Mr Le Pen's followers were just the slightest bit disappointed that the boisterous former French legionnaire and paratrooper had decided not to try for a seat in the French parliament.

When he announced his decision on Wednesday night, he claimed he wanted to channel all his energy into the next presidential election. That poll is not due to take place until 2002, but Mr Le Pen predicted the imminent massive defeat of the ruling centre-right coalition and the resignation of President Chirac. "This is a pseudo-referendum," the FN leader said. "He [Chirac] should be judged on the number of votes received."

Most French people suspected that self-preservation was the real reason why Mr Le Pen opted out of this battle. Mr Bruno Megret, the unofficial deputy to Mr Le Pen and increasingly a challenge to his power, is almost sure to win the Marignane-Vitrolles constituency. If Mr Megret were to win a seat in parliament and he lost, Mr Le Pen's role as the leader of France's most reviled political party would be over.