Marine Le Pen – Page 3

Le Pen’s party wins big in by-election

Two far-right candidates in France have won 50 per cent of the vote in a single by-election.

The success on Sunday night was described as a ‘warning shot’ to mainstream politicians who are accused of letting ordinary people down over issues like immigration.

Front National (FN) candidate Laurent Lopez took 40.4 percent of the vote in the first round of voting in the south eastern town of Brignoles.

Another far-right party, the ‘Parti de France’, took 9.1 percent.

The centre-right UMP, France’s main opposition parliamentary party, came second with 20.9 percent.

The result led to Marine Le Pen, the leader of the FN – which wants to call a halt to new arrivals – today saying that her party is ‘already the main party in France.’

Its support has been rising consistently, with recent opinion polls suggesting it could take around 16 percent of votes in municipal elections scheduled for next March.

Analysts say economic mismanagement by the ruling Socialists, including record unemployment, have all contributed to the FN’s success.

But it is the contentious issue of immigration, especially from eastern European and Muslim countries, which the FN particularly focuses on.

It says that spiralling crime figures are the result of lax European Union policies which allow thousands of undesirables to enter France.

Shanty towns full of Roma gypsies have, for example, begun springing up on the edges of major cities like Paris and Marseille.

The spokesman for the Socialist party called for the left to unite against the rise of the FN. He said the by-election result was a ‘warning shot’ ahead of the municipal elections – the first real electoral test since President Francois Hollande’s Socialists came to power

David Assouline, spokesman for the Socialist party, called for the left to unite against the rise of the FN.

Mr Assouline said the by-election result was a ‘warning shot’ ahead of the municipal elections – the first real electoral test since Francois Hollande’s Socialists came to power last year.

‘It proves what we have been saying for months,’ Mr Assouline added. ‘When the FN stands strong and tall, the left must absolutely be united from the first round.’

The UMP will battle against the FN candidate in the second round of the Brignoles poll on October 13th.

The Socialist party had no candidate in the by-election and had publicly supported the far-left PCF party, which was eliminated in the first round.

Mr Assouline said his party now called on Brignoles residents to vote for the UMP candidate in the second round rather than let the FN in.

Annoyed at constant references to the FN’s extremism, Mrs Le Pen said last week: ‘We are absolutely not a party of the right. Those who think that are making a total analytical error.

‘I’m considering seeking a judicial ruling that the description ‘extreme right’ is a pejorative term deliberately used to damage the Front National. For journalists to label the FN like this is unethical, biased and intellectually sloppy.’

Marine Le Pen loses parliamentary immunity, exposing her to ‘racism’ charge

The leader of France’s National Front lost her right to legal immunity as a European Parliament deputy on Tuesday, exposing her to possible prosecution over a racism charge.

Marine Le Pen’s loss of immunity came at the request of a Lyon court three years after she was accused of inciting racial hatred for comparing Muslim street prayers to the occupation of France by Nazi Germany.

A majority of parliamentarians voted to ratify the decision, as recommended by a judicial committee, a parliament official said after the hearing at the parliament’s seat in the northern French city of Strasbourg.

A public trial in France would be a setback for the National Front as it seeks to capitalize on her rising popularity to grab territory from the ruling Socialist Party and mainstream right in local and European Parliament elections next year.

Le Pen’s anti-immigrant, anti-EU party is notably gaining support at the expense of President Francois Hollande’s Socialists in a darkening economic context, as high and rising joblessness fuels the spread of her euro-skeptic views.

The National Front has also profited from a tax evasion scandal that prompted the resignation of ex-Budget Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, stealing votes in his former home district during a by-election last month.

It is tipped to make strong gains in May 2014 European elections, with one survey by pollster YouGov in June showing it could reap 18 percent of the vote — ahead of the Socialists but behind the center-right UMP party.

By comparison in 2009, when Le Pen won her EU parliament seat in the North-West France region, the National Front scored a total of just 6.3 percent of the vote, versus 16.4 percent for the Socialists and 27.8 percent for the UMP.

Le Pen was ranked France’s third most popular politician in a web-based poll conducted in May by web site L’Internaute. That placed her one position behind former President Nicolas Sarkozy, and 24 positions ahead of Hollande.

If found guilty of inciting racial hatred, she would face a maximum penalty of one year in prison and 45,000 euros in fines. – Reuters

France’s National Front scores ‘spectacular’ 46% in Villeneuve-sur-Lot by-election

Etienne Bousquet-Cassagne of the Front National

A 23-year old candidate from France’s right-wing Front National, Étienne Bousquet-Cassagne, has lost against the mainstream UMP candidate during a by-election in south western France, but scored an overall 46% of the votes, sending shivers through the Socialist government.

Jean-Louis Costes of the UMP yesterday obtained 53,76% of the votes and so prevented Mrs. Marine Le Pen’s Front National from sending a third MP to the French Assemblée. Adding to Socialist woes and causing the governing party to be eliminated during the first round of the contest, was a financial scandal surrounding its candidate and a former junior minister, Jérôme Cahuzac. Accused of tax fraud, Mr. Cahuzac admitted to maintaining a secret bank account abroad for 20 years.

During the first round, the young National Front candidate obtained 26,04% of the votes against Jean-Louis Costes’s 28,71%, ahead of the Socialist Bernard Barral’s 23,69%. On the eve of the second round of voting, the secretary general of the Socialist Party and long-time anti-racist activist, Harlem Désir, called on all voters to “block the Front National candidate”. Both the French President, François Hollande and Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault repeated Désir’s message to voters.

Bousquet-Cassagne stated that the results of the second round showed “an electoral defeat but an ideological victory”. The leader of the Front National, Mrs. Marine Le Pen, said last night that the “primary lesson” to be drawn from this by-election was that the “so-called republican front against us was dead”. She noted the spectacular progress made by her party during the two rounds and maintained that “it shows that the combined left-liberal parties are no longer able to mobilise their electorate to prevent the Front National from gaining votes”.

Marine Le Pen demands political asylum for Snowden

Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s anti-immigration National Front (FN) party, has demanded that the country give former American defense contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden immediate political asylum.

In an open message, Le Pen said she was demanding French President François Hollande “to give, in the name of the French Republic, asylum to this young man who had the courage to reveal to humanity a very serious threat to democracy and to public freedoms.”

The FN leader is better known for calling on cuts to French asylum quotas.

During her campaign ahead of the 2012 presidential election, she called for an 80 percent reduction in the number of refugees taken in by France over five years.

Snowden, a former low-level CIA employee and sub-contractor to the US National Security Agency, revealed on Sunday that he was the source of a leak about a top-secret US program code named PRISM that monitored internet use and phone records.

The 29-year-old told the Guardian and Washington Post newspapers that he had blown the whistle on the NSA’s activity to protect “basic liberties for people around the world”.

On Monday, he told the Guardian he was holed up Hong Kong, which has an extradition treaty with the United States.

He said he was looking at trying to get political asylum in a country that shared his values – and that “the nation that most encompasses this is Iceland.”

Icelandic authorities said on Monday that they had not been contacted by Snowden, and that the only way to apply for asylum there was to arrive in the country itself. – France24

Marine Le Pen to face prosecution for comparing Muslims to Nazis

Marine Le Pen faces prosecution for comparing Muslim immigration to the Nazi occupation of France after the European Parliament’s legal committee recommended that the nationalist leader be stripped of her immunity.

The full parliament is now expected to formally lift her protection from prosecution as an MEP after a vote on the recommendation on July 3, clearing the way for her to face race hate charges in a French court.

Sajjad Karim, a British Tory MEP on the parliament’s legal affairs committee, voted in favour Ms Le Pen losing her parliamentary immunity.

“There is a red line between freedom of speech and inciting racial hatred,” he said. “I, along with many other MEPs, today voted to drop Ms Le Pen’s immunity and I am confident that the majority of the European Parliament will follow our lead in July.”

French prosecutors asked the EU assembly last November to lift the French National Front leader’s immunity as a lawmaker so she could be prosecuted for remarks likening Islamic prayers to the Nazi occupation.

Ms Le Pen faces charges for comments she made in a speech to National Front supporters in December 2010 when she denounced the holding of Muslim prayers in the streets of France in areas where there are no mosques.

“For those who like to talk about World War II, to talk about occupation, we could talk about, for once, the occupation of our territory. There are no armoured vehicles, no soldiers, but it is an occupation all the same and it weighs on people,” she said.

She follows in the footsteps of her father Jean Marie, founder of the French National Front, who was stripped of his legal protection as an MEP to face German Holocaust denials charges in 1998, he had previously been convicted of similar charge in France. – Daily Telegraph

French intellectual commits suicide in Notre Dame cathedral – ‘a political gesture’?

Dominique Venner committed suicide on Tuesday in front of the altar of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. The death of the 78-year-old essayist and historian sparked numerous reactions from French nationalists.

Several executives and members of the country’s National Front party took to Twitter to praise Venner. Directly referencing Venner’s last blog post, National Front party leader Marine Le Pen called the writer’s act an “eminently political” gesture destined to “awaken the people of France.”

“All our respect to Dominique Venner whose last gesture, an eminently political one, attempted to awaken the people of France. MLP”

In a blog post published on the same day as his suicide, Venner talked about “new gestures, spectacular and symbolic ones, to rattle lethargies, to shake anaesthetised consciences and awaken the memory of our origins.”

Louis Aliot, vice-president of the National Front and Marine Le Pen’s partner, also paid his respects, calling Venner an “intransigent and courageous defender of our civilisation’s values.”

“My emotional thoughts go out to the tragic disappearance of D.Venner, intransigent and courageous defender of our civilisation’s values.”

Bruno Gollnisch, another figure of the National Front, saw Venner’s suicide as a “protest against the decadence of our society.” Gollnisch argued that Venner “experienced” the approval of the law on gay marriage “as it should have been experienced, as a promotion of decadence and a defacement of marriage.”

Gollnisch added that “it wasn’t his only fight, he also protested against the programmed disappearance of the French people, the progressive substitution with other populations.”

Julien Rochedy, the president of the National Front youth group tweeted:

“It’s with immense sadness that I hear about Dominique Venner’s suicide. He will be reunited with the heroes from the Iliad he loved so much.”

According to some members of the National Front, Venner was considered as a potential candidate to head the party when it was founded in 1972.

Honorary president Jean-Marie Le Pen commented on the suicide to the AFP by comparing it to the death of Pierre Drieu La Rochelle, a writer who collaborated with the Nazis during WWII and who committed suicide in 1945. “An intellectual suicide, which testifies with death,” declared the founder of the National Front.

On Tuesday night, thousands of militants gathered in front of Notre Dame Cathedral, carrying torches and national flags. According to Le HuffPost, an unidentified speaker said: “We ignored the deep causes of his gesture. We are here to pay tribute to his last fight (…) He always defended France, beautiful, strong and proud of itself.”

This piece has been translated from French and originally appeared on HuffPost France.