International

Le Pen to re-write immigration policy

By Vaiju Naravane

PARIS APRIL 24 . "The first thing I'll do if I become President is to hold a referendum on pulling France out of the European Union and restoring the French franc," France's extreme right-wing Presidential candidate, Jean-Marie Le Pen, told a crowded press conference on Tuesday.

He promised to consult the citizenry on "stopping, then reversing immigration". He said he favours legislation to prevent babies born to foreigners in France from becoming French citizens. He also promised that social assistance would be reserved for French nationals only.

The 73-year-old, who has softened his image in recent months, showed that he had lost none of his pugnacity. "I do not need lessons in democracy from foreign countries and I have none to give them," he said when questioned about the adverse reaction worldwide to his strong showing in Sunday's first-round French Presidential election.

Mr. Le Pen was born into a modest petit bourgeois family in the tiny Brittany commune of Trinit-sur-Mer in 1928. He joined the Foreign Legion in 1954 and went to Algeria and Indochina as a paratrooper. The independent daily Liberation alleged that he was guilty of torturing freedom fighters from Algeria's National Liberation Front — allegations that were never denied. Mr. Le Pen continues to hold that Algerian independence was a mistake.

His diatribes against Jews are well known and he narrowly escaped imprisonment in 1997 when he physically assaulted a female Socialist politician. He holds revisionist views on WWII and claims that the number of Jewish victims in concentration camps was highly exaggerated. In 1987, he described the Holocaust and concentration camp ovens as "a detail of history".

The French President, Jacques Chirac, categorically refused a nationally televised debate with Mr. Le Pen saying: "Faced with intolerance and hatred no debate is possible." Mr. Le Pen described the President's words as "an attack on democracy" and "an absolute scandal".

France's political classes are in a state of ferment, with discussions on how to combat Mr. Le Pen in the Presidential and, more importantly, legislative election to follow. Mr. Chirac has attempted to float a new Presidential party, but the idea is being resisted by elements of the traditional right.

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