.:: The StrongBrain Collective ::.

Last week Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder and leader of the Front National, finished a surprising second in the first round of the French presidential elections. The Front National is an extreme right-wing party whose members espouse such ideas as sending all immigrants in France back to their home countries, providing social benefits only to French citizens born in France (while denying automatic French citizenship to children born of foreign parents in France), and pulling France out of the European Union. Among other unsavory remarks, Le Pen has called the Holocaust "a mere detail of history" and expressed fears about non-white immigrants overrunning (and eventually destroying) France. He embraces multiculturalism, but a multiculturalism more akin to Adolf Hitler's theory of the races (whereby races compete with each other for mere survival, therefore competing races must be destroyed) than to the ideas of diversity and tolerance preached on American university campuses.

In the days following the election, thousands of people demonstrated in the streets of France, carrying signs with slogans like "I am ashamed to be French" or "Was the Holocaust really just a detail of history?" During a recent speech in the European Parliament in Brussels -- where Le Pen sits as a member of the European Parliament (MEP) -- Le Pen faced jeers from fellow MEP's holding placards showing the word "non," and then cancelled a press conference where he had been scheduled to speak. Demonstrators sat outside the European Parliament building waiting for Le Pen to appear, then harassed and physically assaulted his representative.

The last time similar events occurred in Europe was two years ago, when the Freedom Party of Austria -- with a similarly unpalatable leader, Jörg Haider -- took a surprise second place in the parliamentary elections. When first and third place vote-getters, the Conservatives and the Socialists, failed to keep their coalition together, the Conservative leader created a coalition with the Freedom Party...and promptly faced sanctions from the fourteen other EU countries. These governments justified their sanctions by appealing to EU principles of democracy, claiming Haider's party contravened these principles. At meetings, ministers would ignore their Austrian counterparts, even to the point of not offering space under an umbrella during a rain storm. Eventually this situation was resolved, as a committee of 'three wise men' helped regularize relations between the EU and Austria. The most compelling argument for such a move was that the Freedom Party had been popularly elected, winning the support of more than a quarter of Austrian voters (a high percentage in European multi-party systems).

Le Pen won his right to the second round of the French presidential elections with about 20% of the vote, slightly beneath the amount received by current President Jacques Chirac (Conservative) and slightly above the level garnered by sitting Prime Minister Lionel Jospin (Socialist). The result shocked just about everyone following the election, whose lead up polls had focused exclusively on the Chirac-Jospin race. The law governing presidential elections (as well as other elections done by majority vote in France) calls for two rounds, if no one wins more than 50% the first time around. With as many as 7-10 candidates, votes are likely to be split among various candidates on both the left and the right. Sometimes, voters use these first rounds to "send a message" (to express disapproval with current policies) to sitting officials by voting for lesser known candidates. They can do this, often, without influencing the final outcome, as long as their first choice candidate makes it to the second round. When enough people do this, however, major candidates (like Jospin) can lose unexpectedly and, unexpectedly, many voters have to choose between two candidates they do not prefer at all. Pollsters are now predicting a landslide victory for Chirac in the next round, although a danger still exists that left-wing voters will not turn up at all to vote, in turn giving larger leeway for Le Pen's supporters to pull off another surprise victory.

If Le Pen does indeed win in a couple of weeks time, the European Union will again be faced with the hard question of relations with one its own member states. A clear difference exists between this potential situation and that involving Austria, where Jörg Haider did not enter national government, but instead remained leader of his regional government and vowed not to interfere in national politics. The French president is a strong figure by international standards, as well as the official representative of France in world politics. France being one of the main engines of the EU, as well as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, makes this potential state of affairs a very grave matter. To echo a poster I saw floating around in one anti-Le Pen crowd, "Abstention is dangerous." To left-wing French citizens opposed to voting for Chirac, I say only that parliamentary elections are soon approaching: vote your conscience then! The winning party's leader becomes prime minister, who is the only figure constitutionally enabled to counteract the president -- may he be from the left!

To Americans marveling at this situation, let me only say three things. First, despite the undesirable results, the president in France is directly elected (a legacy of De Gaulle, who believed it would strengthen the President versus the Prime Minister), unlike in the United States. Second, Le Pen's rhetoric should sound familiar, at least to those of you who have been politically aware for the past few years, because it is not unlike that of Ross Perot or of Pat Buchanan. Third, mainstream right-wing politicians in France (and elsewhere in Western Europe) are much like the Democrats in our country, making beyond the pale right-wing extremists there much like our mainstream Republicans. Much of the world experienced similar horror watching George W. win our elections...