Jean-Marie Le Pen, speaking to an impassioned gathering in the faded industrial town of Lille on Sunday, sounded by turns ferociously nationalist, vaguely socialist, and occasionally surreal. Over thunderous applause from 2,500 supporters the far-right leader of the National Front declared, "The God of ants and the God of the stars will give us, with you, victory. Because I am the candidate of life."
Rambling, rabble-rousing, emotive and evocative, the 78-year-old Le Pen grabbed analogies and imagery from pastoral landscapes and "Alice in Wonderland." But where is this maze of language leading? He hopes toward the mainstream. This candidate, who advocates ending immigration, limiting social benefits, and pulling out of NATO and the European Union, recently had the chutzpah to refer to himself as "center-right" on the political spectrum.
In fact, there were more than a few hints of left-wing populism as Le Pen laid out his party platform at the Lille meeting. He claimed he could protect France from "predatory capitalism," including big corporate bosses and "their servants...the Sarkozys, the Royals, the Bayrous." He portrayed the dramatic rise of China and India in apocalyptic terms, with the shadow of these Eastern giants spreading across a France that is vulnerable and unprepared. His remedy: relentless taxes on products imported from countries that don't pay their workers what the French consider a living wage.
Le Pen promised to engage in a Marshall Plan to repopulate the French countryside. He even hit a few green notes, deploring threats to the global ecology. The National Front candidate promised that if he is elected president (which is highly doubtful) he will go to the United Nations to galvanize international coordination on the management of water, food, medicine, and education.
Le Pen has turned his nationalist rhetoric into a no-global mantra, speaking of the need for "enlightened capitalism" to avoid the depredations of an international financial system driven by a few thousand investors, traders and analysts whose "only fatherland is money."
As with many labyrinths, it would seem that the farther you go to the left, the more you wind up on the right.
-- Eric Pape and Christopher Dickey
Also see "The Third Man: Once again, Le Pen is poised to play the spoiler in France's elections."
Photo by Laurent Van der Stockt for Gamma/Newsweek
