"FRANCE'S extreme right wing National Front (FN) celebrated the re election of its president and founder, Mr Jean Marie Le Pen, at its 10th party congress yesterday. Mr Le Pen also announced the creation of a Europe wide club of nationalist parties called "Euronat".
Mr Le Pen (69), was the only candidate for the leadership of the party he founded 25 years ago. His followers refer to him simply as "the president" and speakers at the congress received wild applause each time they suggested that Mr Le Pen would one day be president of France.
He gained 15.7 per cent of the vote in the 1995 French presidential election, but the FN's support is growing because of high unemployment, disillusionment with traditional parties and anxiety about the pace of European integration.
The French left rallied more than 50,000 people to demonstrate against the FN on Saturday. By upstaging the congress, the leftwingers wanted to show that although the FN is a vocal minority, the vast majority of Europeans are against its racist ideology.
But the weekend of "alternative" events was marred when riots broke out in the centre of the Alsatian capital on Saturday night. More than 20 shop windows were broken and some 40 youths were arrested. Fearing further violence, officials cancelled an open air concert that had been scheduled to take place last night.
Ten representatives of European right wing nationalist parties spoke to the FN congress. Mr Franck Vanhecke, the president of the Vlaams Blok in Belgium and a member of the European Parliament, said the FN's February 9th election victory in Vitrolles symbolised the success of all right wing parties in Europe.
Mr Vanhecke would like to dissolve Belgium and create a greater Netherlands for Flemish speaking people. Mr Ricardo Saenz de Ynestrillas, president of Spain's Alianza Unidad Nacional, also addressed the delegates.
The FN's Romanian and Hungarian guests had clearly conflicting goals, and the Czech speaker angered the Slovak representative by saying he hoped for the reunification of Czechoslovakia. "Having friends who detest one another doesn't prevent them from being our friends," Mr Le Pen said.
The main purpose of the congress, which will end today, is to prepare the FN for the March 1998 parliamentary elections.
If the front wins at least 25 of the 577 seats the French parliament, it will form an influential political bloc. Mr Le Pen refuses to say whom he considers as his deputy, but Mr Bruno Megret, whose wife Catherine won the Vitrolles election, appears to be winning his power struggle with Mr Bruno Gollnisch, his rival to succeed Mr Le Pen.
Mr Le Pen told the party congress: "We propose in coming days a form of. .. political cooperation between our countries. Why not call this Euronat - a grouping of the Europe of nationalists, of the Europe of nationals?"
