In a stunning upset that was not predicted by any of the
polls, far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen bested prime
minister Lionel Jospin in the first round of France's
presidential elections to face a runoff election with current
president Jacques Chirac.
President Jacques Chirac won about 19.6 percent of the vote
in this first round. With 17 percent, Le Pen edged out
current Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, who finished third with
16 percent.
The president is the most powerful official in France,
followed by the prime minister.
After hearing the results, Jospin said he would retire from
politics.
The far-right leader who once called the Holocaust a mere
"detail" of World War II will square off against Chirac in
the May 5 runoff.
Most of France was shocked by the results. In protest, up to
10,000 people marched in Paris shouting "Le Pen is a fascist"
while riot police fired teargas and drove back a crowd of
hundreds of demonstrators who began throwing barriers in the
historic Place de la Concorde.
Above a photo of Le Pen, the left-leaning daily Liberation
ran a single-word headline on its front page: "Non." "The
French political system, tottering for years, has imploded,"
it said in an editorial.
"The Earthquake," commented right-leaning Le
Figaro.
Notorious for the antisemitic views he has espoused, Le Pen
until recently had seen support for his National Front Party
waning. But in a campaign dominated by France's rising crime
and delinquency rates, the National Front's anti-immigrant
and law-and-order rhetoric caught the attention of French
voters.
Some commentators considered the results more of a fluke,
citing the record low voting rates among an electorate
certain that Jospin and Chirac would be the candidates left
standing for the runoff. Many Jews voted for other candidates
who they knew had no chance, in protest against the
perception that both Chirac and Jospin were not doing enough
to combat Moslem antisemitism in France.
Helping Le Pen were his campaign efforts to re-invent himself
as a more "respectable" candidate. In the past, during some
three decades on the national stage, Le Pen has made no
secret of his antisemitic views, a tactic that contributed to
the strong support for his National Front Party in
conservative areas of southeastern France.
In 1987, on a national radio show, Le Pen called the Nazi gas
chambers a mere "detail" of World War II. The comment earned
him widespread notoriety, and was followed by the strongest
electoral returns of his career.
Le Pen recently tried to reinvent himself as a candidate of
the center-right. Part of this involved abandoning his Jew-
baiting tactics. "I am not perfect," he responded recently
when asked about his history of antisemitic remarks, which Le
Pen now refers to as "unfortunate phrases."
On the day after the election, Jewish organizational leaders
joined a chorus of critics, from the center-right to the far
left, in decrying the strong show of support for the extreme
right.
"This is a shock," said Roger Cukierman, president of CRIF,
the umbrella group of secular French Jewish organizations.
"But when we think about it more, we understand it as the
result of French people's reaction to problems of
insecurity.
"This is a defensive reaction which I deplore," he added,
"but I understand it."
Many vowed to work to make sure not only that Le Pen loses
the May 5 runoff, but that he loses by a margin large enough
to restore France's standing in the eyes of the world.
Leading members of Jospin's Socialist Party said they would
vote for Chirac in the runoff.
Few leaving the polls seemed to take seriously the idea that
Le Pen would surpass Jospin on Sunday, and in the process
grab a spotlight he has always coveted.
Now, with analysts expecting Chirac to win the runoff by a
margin of 80 to 20, Le Pen has little to lose as he presents
his views to the nation during the next two weeks. He will
continue advocating restrictions on immigration and calling
for the repatriation of non-citizens found guilty of felonies
or misdemeanors.
Among a list of Le Pen's views in a pamphlet titled Le Pen
Was, Is, And Will Be Right was a warning about the
influence of the Jewish "lobby" in France. "We would be wrong
to forget the role of the Jewish Masonic International of
B'nai B'rith," Le Pen claimed.
