Le Pen takes fifth shot at the presidency

Le Pen stirs French nationalism to great effect. Picture / Reuters

PARIS - The blogs are vitriolic: he is called a fascist, a pig, a butcher. The more poetic liken him to Jabba the Hutt, the blobby monster for Star Wars.

But names are all part of the fun for Jean-Marie Le Pen.

Less than two months short of his 78th birthday, the one-eyed former French paratrooper and head of the ultra-right National Front (FN) has made a long and profitable career out of being a "grande gueule" - an expert at saying the unspeakable. Controversy is his stock in trade.

At an age when his contemporaries are cultivating gardens or viewing the Mediterranean from a retirement home, Le Pen scheduled a May Day rally in tribute to Joan of Arc to unveil his fifth bid for France's presidency.

He created one of the biggest upsets in France's post-World War II political history by edging out the socialist contender in the 2002 presidency race, to face conservative incumbent Jacques Chirac in the runoff.

The breakthrough stirred shock that endures to this day. How could a mature democracy, a fountainhead of human rights and liberty, favour an unabashed populist, a xenophobe infamous for once dismissing the Nazi gas chambers as a "detail of history"?

For the 2007 election, no one is under-estimating Le Pen's challenge. France is in deep political crisis, mainstream parties are weak and divided, and the ground for him seems even more fertile than before.

In the past year, President Jacques Chirac has lost a referendum on the European Constitution; rioting has erupted across France's ethnic-minority housing estates; and laws to weaken labour protection have been thwarted by massive street protests.

Added to that is the state of near-civil war between Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin and Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, both of them jostling to succeed Chirac.

"In 2002, people tried to frighten the public, telling them that if Le Pen were elected, they would get riots and strikes, and that's exactly what has happened under Chirac," said FN Secretary Jean-Francois Touze.

In these circumstances, the instinct of the French public will be to turn towards someone who has never exercised power.

Some conservatives deem Le Pen's threat so powerful that they are chipping away at his constituency of poor whites, emulating some of his anti-immigration and jingoistic messages and trying to win over local officials sympathetic to the FN.

Sarkozy, president of Chirac's Union for a Popular Majority (UMP), last month borrowed a Le Pen slogan word for word: "Those who don't like France only have to leave."

Philippe de Villiers, head of a small Movement for France Party (MPF), is trying to outflank Le Pen on the issue of Muslim immigration, declaring Islam to be incompatible with the French Republic and calling for a ban on the building of new mosques.

Jean-Yves Camus, a specialist at the European Centre for Research into Racism and Anti-Semitism, believes this wooing is a waste of time, given that Le Pen's allure lies with his character and not his policies.

"In 2002, everyone said that he was dead, his party was riven by strife and his ideas were on the skids," said Camus.

"The result: Le Pen got through to the second round of the presidential election with his best-ever electoral score. In 2007, he will do well again."

Can Le Pen repeat his feat of 2002? Maybe even win the presidency?

He still enjoys widespread support. An opinion poll by Ifop in April found that more than a third of voters said the far-right enriched political debate and was in tune with public concerns.

Another survey by the Le Parisien credited him with 14 per cent of the vote, and Villiers with 4 per cent.

But whether he could make it through to the runoff depends greatly on the left-wing parties.

Disunion caused the left-wing vote to splinter in 2002's first round, enabling Le Pen, with almost 17 per cent of the vote, to enter the two-horse runoff against Chirac. Opinion polls today say more than a third of electors are undecided.

Age and stamina also play against Le Pen, who turns 78 on June 20.

With typically bombastic humour, he likes to boast that he is younger than the Pope and Fidel Castro, but today he is clearly more tired and less dynamic than in the past.

Whatever the outcome, 2007 may be the old hustler's last throw of the dice.

But France should take heed - the electoral base that he has built up over half a century of political mud-stirring will remain.