Can Jean Marie Le Pen repeat his 2002 performance ?

Can Jean Marie Le Pen repeat his 2002 performance? France suffered a political earthquake when the National Front candidate Jean Marie Le Pen, came second to incumbent Jacques Chirac in the first round of the presidential elections five years ago. After two weeks of mass protests against Le Pen’s anti-immigration policies, Chirac won a landslide victory in the second round. But five years on, with unemployment high, and tension in the country’s high-immigration suburbs, commentators are no longer ruling out a repeat of 2002.

“I will make mince meat out of the Euro, opinion polls are horse poo, races are not equal” just a sample of the comments Le Pen made this week. At Seventy eight, the controversial politician does not intend to change. He claims that all of his competitors belong to a system that is rotten with corruption, while he is the only real people’s candidate.

The National Front is not exploiting people’s fears, it is the voice of the people! The voice of employees and retired people, the voice of farmers and small entrepreneurs, the voice of young and old people, families and single people, male and female widows, ….and myself.

Le Pen still enjoys posing as a victim….a victim who is denied access to the media….which isn’t true…the victim of a political plot to bar him from running…..

The convicted racist politician says he doesn’t need to campaign much, because events are tilting in his favour. Last week’s clashes between police and youths in the Gare du Nord station in Paris for instance. They have reintroduced the two “Is”, insecurity and immigration, at the heart of the campaign, Le Pen believes. “I have always been ahead of my time”, he claims. “I am the first politician to have blown the whistle over mass immigration”. In political rallies, Le Pen often makes fun of his opponents whom he says are copying him.

As the days go by, I will claim my toys back from Nicolas’s bag, I will also claim my ideas back from Nicolas, and in the end my bag will be much more attractive than theirs...

The centre right candidate, Nicolas Sarkozy, has called for a Ministry of immigration and national identity. Sarkozy is making no secret that he is chasing the votes of le Pen’s followers. While socialist Ségolène Royal, said that every household should own a French flag. Le Pen is convinced that in the end people will prefer the original to the copy. He is in favour of the “preference nationale”, mainly giving jobs, housing and social security to French people first.

Le Pen’s loyal daughter Marine is on the campaign trail for her father. Marine Le Pen leads the modernist branch that is keen to give her father’s party a more presentable face. The fact that she is a woman also helps the party attract female voters, because the Lepen ballot is predominantly male. So This week for instance she went to a street market in Aulnay-sous-Bois, north of Paris, she also went to a food market in Meaux, East of the capital. Her seventy eight year old father only concentrates on his TV and Radio appearances, he has only organised a handful of rallies. Marine Le Pen says it has nothing to do with her father’s age.

At seventy eight Le Pen is still giving polling institutes a headache, because few people admit they voted for Le Pen in 2002, and few people openly say they will vote for Le Pen this time around……..so the first accurate surveys will be exit polls, on April the twenty second.

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Tags elections, extremism, france, jean-marie le pen

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