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Le
Pen Faces Wide Scale Criticism
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| Demonstrators hold a banner reading "Le Pen at the Elysee, a civil war for sure." |
LONDON,
April 24 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Following his surprising
success in the first round of the French ballot, far-right
presidential candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen faced wide scale criticism on
both the national and international level.
British
Prime Minister Tony Blair accused Le Pen of promoting
"repellent" racism and urged France to defeat him in the
second round of its presidential election, the British newspaper The
Guardian reported Wednesday, April 24.
Blair
was quoted as issuing a Europe-wide call for supporters of democracy
to fight the values of the National Front leader.
"I
don't know Le Pen, but I find his policies repellent," The
Guardian newspaper quoted Blair as saying. "I think it
is vitally important that people who believe in democracy, who loathe
those policies of racism and narrow-minded nationalism, to fight it at
every level, politically, organizationally and culturally."
The
election success of Le Pen "is not France",
the ultra-conservative challenger of German Chancellor Gerhard
Schroeder in upcoming general elections said Wednesday.
"I
am, like all Europeans and the great majority in France,
appalled" by the results of the first round of presidential
elections Sunday, April 21, said Stoiber who is prime minister of
Bavaria.
While
welcoming the prospect of a landslide victory for Jacques Chirac in
the second round, Stoiber laid the blame for the strong showing of
extremists at the main parties.
He
said the French vote "shows that the big parties in Europe create
opportunities for radical parties if they forget people's
problems."
The
United States, commenting obliquely on the electoral success of the
extreme right in France, on Tuesday, April 23, asked all European
politicians to speak out against anti-Semitism and protect minority
rights.
"We're
against anti-Semitism, we're against acts of prejudice, acts of
violence against ethnic groups. We do think that all politicians and
leaders need to speak out against acts of hatred,” said U.S. State
Department spokesman Richard Boucher.
Boucher
was answering a question on anti-Semitism in some European countries
and the unexpected vote of Le Pen, who came second in the first round
of voting in French presidential elections Sunday.
Le
Pen once called the Nazi gas chambers a "detail" of history,
but he denies he is anti-Semitic.
Boucher
carefully avoided mentioning Le Pen by name and said that most
European leaders had done what is needed.
On
Sunday, Le Pen finished second in the French election, setting up a
runoff with conservative President Jacques Chirac on May 5. A third
candidate in the first round, socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin,
was edged out of the race.
On
Tuesday, Chirac said he would refuse to debate Le Pen, and urged the
French to unite against his "extremism, racism, anti-Semitism and
xenophobia."
Le
Pen, who won nearly 17 percent of the vote Sunday compared to Chirac's
19.9 percent, promptly accused Chirac of running scared after the
president refused any debate.
If
elected president, Le Pen said, he would hold a referendum on cutting
France's ties with the European Union and restoring the franc as
France's currency. Le Pen, who is fiercely anti-immigrant, also said
he would move to restore border controls to stem the entrance of
foreigners.
Left-wing
politicians, hard-bitten trade unionists and trendy media joined
mounting calls for an anti-Le Pen vote in the May 5 runoff as youths
organized nightly protests chanting "vote the crook, not the
fascist!"
"We
didn't survive AIDS until now to see this," the radical AIDS
activist group Act Up declared. "Act Up has decided to call to
vote Chirac on May 5. With death in its soul."
France’s
Socialist Finance Minister Laurent Fabius stumbled over his words on
RTL morning radio as he stammered out his reluctant call to back
Chirac before finally saying: "An anti-Le Pen referendum --
that's what it's all about."
He
picked up the phrase from the leftist daily Liberation,
whose editor Serge July wrote: "To hold back Le Pen on May 5, the
vote for Chirac must be massive. There's only one way -- make the
second round an anti-Le Pen referendum."
Tens
of thousands of anti-Le Pen protesters again took to the streets of
France Tuesday, marching in Paris and a host of other cities as they
have done daily since Sunday night.
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