The National Front and French Politics: The Resistible Rise of Jean-Marie Le Pen
GalliaWatch (Free subscription) | yesterday
Now that Jean-Marie Le Pen is inching his way into semi-retirement, it is, at long last, time for Marine Le Pen to take the helm of the Front National. Until now, she has been an excellent speaker, debater and symbol. If she lost the mayoral election in Hénin-Beaumont a few months ago it was not her fault. A concerted anti-Le Pen campaign was successfully waged by Sarkozy's UMP party, affiliated...
Nasir Khan blog (Free subscription) | 11/14/2009
Tom Walker, Red Pepper , Aug. 31, 2009 The British National Party will be joined in the European parliament by far-right parties from across the continent. But how much support are fascists and racists really picking up? Tom Walker investigates The recent European elections saw all sorts of far-right parties making gains across the continent. They ranged from right-wing populists and nationalists to...
GalliaWatch (Free subscription) | 11/13/2009
The Front National, for better or for worse, is reaching out to Russia. On the occasion of a vote in the European Parliament on whether or not Russia should be admitted to the WTO, Jean-Marie Le Pen expresses his conviction that Russia is completely different from the USSR. Here he explains to the president of the EU Parliament the reasons for his vote: Russia is decidedly the only country in the world...
Times Online (Free subscription) | 11/12/2009
Nick Griffin allied himself firmly with Jean-Marie Le Pen, of the French National Front, yesterday to create a pan-European party and claim of about £360,000 a year in taxpayer funding for the far Right.
The Guardian (Free subscription) | 11/06/2009
Pandering to rightwing fears of immigration to France will only obscure the real issues of poverty, racism and inequality Announcing plans for a debate on national identity , France's immigration minister, Eric Besson, underlined the thinking behind the project. "We should never have abandoned to the Front National (FN) a certain number of values that belong to our Republican heritage,"...
Immigration Watch International (Free subscription) | 11/06/2009
For decades, the French considered it taboo to question whether immigration and foreign influences were diluting France’s social and cultural character. Indeed, the topic was considered so toxic that no one in France besides extreme-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen would even take it up in public. But times have changed. Twenty years after Le Pen’s [...]
Hocemo Li Na Kafu? (Free subscription) | 11/03/2009
I remember an interview between Jeremy Paxman and then UK Tory leader Michael Howard in the leadup to the 2005 British general election. Howard said--I paraphrase here--that he intended to withdraw the UK from the UN Refugee Convention. Paxman responded by pointing out that this put Howard's Tories farther to the right of Jean-Marie Le Pen's Front National, and would put the UK in league with
News Scotsman (Free subscription) | 11/03/2009
THE daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen has said she will run to succeed her father as head of France's National Front party.
Scotsman.com (Free subscription) | 11/03/2009
THE daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen has said she will run to succeed her father as head of France's National Front party.
Muslims Against Sharia (Free subscription) | 10/30/2009
France is to adopt a series of measures to 'reaffirm pride' in the country and combat Islamic fundamentalism. They include everybody receiving lessons in the nation's Christian history and children singing the national anthem. Using words which infuriated ethnic minority groups and Socialist opponents, immigration minister Eric Besson also said he wanted 'foreigners to speak better French'. He called...
Islam in Europe (Free subscription) | 10/29/2009
France: 'National pride' measures to ensure integration France is to adopt a series of measures to 'reaffirm pride' in the country and combat Islamic fundamentalism. They include everybody receiving lessons in the nation's Christian history and children singing the national anthem. Using words which infuriated ethnic minority groups and Socialist opponents, immigration minister Eric Besson also said...
David Pryce-Jones (Free subscription) | 10/27/2009
England is a strange place these days. A sort of political volcano has exploded, and the significance of it is not clear. According to pretty well everyone with access to free speech, fascism has erupted. The British National party has been making surreptitious headway for some time now, but restricted to winning a seat on some local council here or there. Suddenly in elections for the European parliament...
Truth In Our Time (Free subscription) | 10/24/2009
One fifth of the UK electorate would consider voting for the BNP in the wake of Nick Griffin’s Question Time appearance, according to a poll. The YouGov poll, taken hours after the BBC show aired, indicates that 22% of people in this country would ‘seriously consider’ voting for the far-right party in an upcoming election. The BNP’s leader’s invitation to join the Question...
Musings from Medway (Free subscription) | 10/24/2009
This blog has refrained from making a judgement on the Questiontime appearance of Nick Griffin, last Thursday evening, until now. I do not agree with Sayeeda Warsi on a number of things, including her quite transitory stance on minority rights, but she was totally on the ball in her latest video to be found on the Conservative Party website. I have some confidence that the 'nasty' little Englander...
Paul Linford (Free subscription) | 10/24/2009
All the media attention this week was on Nick Griffin and the BNP. But meanwhile, some possibly more significant developments have been taking place behind the scenes in the Labour Party. Here's today's Journal column. There is a widely-held maxim in our profession that all publicity is good publicity. But after Thursday night's Question Time on the BBC, I wonder if Nick Griffin would necessarily agree....
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