A political earthquake shook France today, when the extreme right-wing leader Mr Jean-Marie Le Pen won a place on the ballot in the May 5th run-off for the French presidency.
Mr Le Pen’s victory over 14 other candidates, including the socialist Prime Minister Mr Lionel Jospin, marks the first time in the history of the Fifth Republic that the extreme right will be represented in the second round. It is also the first time since 1969 that the left will not have a candidate in France’s most important election.
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Supporters of French National Front
presidential candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen celebrate at his campaign headquarters in Saint Cloud, near Paris. Photo: Reuters |
The front-runner, President Jacques Chirac received 20.1 per cent of the vote – the lowest score ever for an out-going president. Mr Le Pen obtained 17.3 per cent and Mr Jospin 16.3 per cent. The presidential election is now a contest between Mr Chirac’s centre-right Gaullists and Mr Le Pen’s extreme-right National Front.
Mr Le Pen wants to pull France out of the European Union and NATO and stop immigration. Although he has been extremely careful of his rhetoric during this campaign – the fourth time he has stood for the presidency – past statements earned him a reputation as racist, anti-Semitic and xenophobic, accusations repeated today by the socialist party spokesman Mr Vincent Peillon.
Mr Le Pen’s popularity rose steadily after the September 11th attacks, which seemed to vindicate his belief that Islam and immigration pose a danger for western civilisation. An incident last October, when Algerian football fans booed the Marseillaise at the Stade de France, boosted his popularity.
"This blow to democracy is the responsibility of Mr Chirac, who centred the campaign on crime," said the communist transport minister Mr Jean-Claude Gayssot.
Mr Nicolas Sarkozy, who is favoured to be prime minister if the Gaullists win the June legislative election, said Mr Le Pen’s success was "very worrying news for our country". He blamed the socialists for a "lack of humility and arrogance" and claimed the fragmentation of the left – not Mr Chirac’s campaign - destroyed Mr Jospin.
Mr Le Pen has for decades blamed France’s large north African community for insecurity in France. Crime rose 16 per cent during Mr Jospin’s five-year term, a phenomenon which Mr Le Pen attributed to lax policies and a "May 1968 mentality".
The economic slowdown also helped Mr Le Pen, who has always performed better in times of high unemployment. He boasted last night that he received more workers’ votes than any other candidate in the 1995 election.
Speaking from his campaign headquarters in St Cloud, west of Paris, minutes after news of his victory, Mr Le Pen said he had beaten Mr Jospin "because the French did not want their future to be reduced to a duel between Jospin and Chirac".
Asked how he would reassure millions of voters who believe he is dangerous, he chided the television interviewer for distinguishing arbitrarily between left and right-wing voters. "The people are wrong less often than you in the establishment think," he said.
In an interview with The Irish Timesthree days before the election, Mr Le Pen accused Messers Chirac and Jospin of excluding three issues from the campaign: "The dissolution of France in the euro-globalist magma, the close link between immigration and crime and les affaires" – the financial scandals surrounding Mr Chirac.
Mr Jospin’s supporters wept in his party headquarters, and candidates from the left, including the green Mr Noel Mamere and Mr Jean-Pierre Chevènement, called on their voters to support Mr Chirac "to block Le Pen’s path". The finance minister Mr Laurent Fabius said the result was "a cataclysm for millions of French people" and worried that it would create a bad image of France abroad. Mr Jospin is expected to call on socialists to vote for Mr Chirac, who has been his rival for five years.
The abstention rate of more than 25 per cent was the highest since the Fifth Republic was founded in 1958.