The National Front and French Politics: The Resistible Rise of Jean-Marie Le Pen
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....
Dr Sean's Diary (Free subscription) | 10/23/2009
I sat in the front of the TV with one eye on a sheaf of article from the Czech press and one eye on BBC TV's widely billed, controversial edition of Question Time , it flagship panel discussion programme featuring British National Party leader Nick Griffin: the first time the far-right has been accorded the accolade of such recognition, although the BNP has had relatively easy access to the airwaves...
Times Online (Free subscription) | 10/22/2009
The row over Nick Griffin’s appearance on Question Time echoes the controversy that greeted the first invitation for Jean-Marie Le Pen to debate on prime-time television in France 25 years ago. Until then the leader of the ultra-right National Front had been kept off the French airwaves by journalists unwilling to give publicity to his racist rants.
Liberty Scott (Free subscription) | 10/22/2009
There is so much hype and talk about the BNP Leader Nick Griffin being invited onto the BBC TV show Question Time tonight, you'd think it was a commercial channel. Which does beg the question. The BBC is state owned, compulsorily funded by those who own TV sets. It feels obliged to give "everyone a fair say" and since the BNP gained around 900,000 votes at the last MEP and local government...
CNN (Free subscription) | 10/22/2009
Millions of Britons will tune in to the nation's public broadcaster Thursday when British National Party leader Nick Griffin appears on prime time political television. An appearance on a similar show in France in the 1980s by far right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen was seen by many as a pivotal moment in his political career.
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