The Hindu : Le Pen's rise

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Thursday, May 02, 2002

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Le Pen's rise

By Vaiju Naravane

France that so haughtily gave condescending lessons in democracy... is today shamed and derided, jeered at by its European partners.

IT IS a case of the "arroseur arros, the biter bit". That's what the Belgians, the Austrians and the Italians, the Danes, the Dutch and the Germans are saying, as France wakes up reeling from the outcome of the April 21 presidential elections. Almost a fifth of those who voted, gave their support to the extreme right wing leader, Jean Marie Le Pen, allowing him to score over 17 per cent of the vote and knock the socialists out of the second round.

Proud France that so haughtily gave condescending lessons in democracy to European countries where extreme right politicians have gained credence and popularity is today shamed and derided, jeered at by its European partners who find France's holier than thou attitude, righteous indignation and penchant for moralising almost impossible to bear.There has been much mulling over the Socialist Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin's defeat. Few disagree that he governed France with devotion and diligence over the past five years, introducing genuine reform, reducing unemployment by a million, extending healthcare and benefits to the poorest, privatising the public sector, reducing working hours, leaving the economy in a much healthier state than what he inherited.

Yet, he was spat upon, disavowed and punished in the cruellest way possible, for defeat at the hands of a communist, leftist or republican right winger would have been infinitely more honourable than the humiliation inflicted by a venom-spewing demagogue who advocates herding up and expelling immigrants, considers women to be little more than baby-making factories and dismisses the holocaust as "a detail of history".

Towards the end of the 1990s Europe was largely social democratic and the European Union was at pains to find the right balance between productivity, keeping the competitive edge in a market economy and social issues such as a redistribution of wealth to even out the imbalances pitting the haves against the have-nots.

Today there is a distinct veering to the right. Social democrats have lost in Italy, Austria, Spain and Denmark, while Britain's Tony Blair and his New Labour can hardly be held up as a model of left wing policies. A more worrisome phenomenon is the strong showing by extreme-right parties such a Belgium's Vlaams Blok, Austria's FPO, Italy's Northern League and to some extent the reformed former fascist party Allianza Nazionale, the People's Party in Denmark, the Truth and Life Party in Hungary, the Pim Fortuyn list in Holland, Germany's Schill party and of course Mr. Le Pen's National Front. Evidently, local conditions contributing to the rise of these extremists differ from country to country.Many of those who vote extreme right are the unemployed, under-qualified who have been left by the wayside in the latest "survival of the fittest" push to adjust to brute market forces. And if there is one theme that has dominated extreme right wing rhetoric these past few years, it is immigration. Most right wing demagogues argue, and Mr. Le Pen is no exception, that high crime rates are a result of the high, unchecked immigration encouraged by the social democrats' habitually soft response to crime.

The French would like the world to believe that theirs is an open society whose philosophy is welcoming, even-handed and just. But today, with leaders such as Mr. Le Pen of the ultra-right, neo-fascist National Front egging them on, France is becoming withdrawn and xenophobic, even racist. In the climate of suspicion and hatred that prevails today, this dichotomy between the real and imagined France, between the France that wins universal approbation for its ideals and principles and the France that is intolerant and xenophobic, that wants to expel illegal immigrants and professes a policy of zero immigration, has become sharply defined.

French voters were so disappointed by the candidates' weary repetition of inane sound bites, by the absence of any genuine public debate on issues of importance, that 30 per cent of them stayed away from the polls. Anti-National Front demonstrations in most major cities in France point to a feeling of collective guilt and shame. However, 57 per cent of those questioned say they are worried about high crime rates and immigration.

The majority of the French are not in a generous mood. They are anxious, worried, depressed and despairing. The future looks bleak and menacing with talk of the mobility and flexibility of the marketplace, which in simple terms means an end to job security — for most, a frightening prospect. In this frame of mind, the National Front's ideology, particularly its claim that booting out immigrants will create 6.5 million jobs, sounds both persuasive and seductive. Mr. Le Pen paints a frightening picture depicting hordes of immigrants descending on France, robbing the French, snatching their jobs. But statistics reveal otherwise. Over the past three years the number of immigrants coming legally into France has steadily declined and less than 50,000 immigrants came to this country last year. France now rejects 85 per cent of all demands for political asylum and the number of illegal immigrants entering the country has been reduced to a trickle.

Another interesting figure is that of unemployment. Joblessness among the immigrant community is as high as 20 per cent, a whole 10 points higher than the national average of 10 per cent. The National Institute of Statistics has also underlined the fact that only ten per cent of those working clandestinely are immigrants. The main culprits are the French who do not like paying income tax or professional charges. (Only 50 per cent of the households in France pay income tax). The problems began in the 1950s when "Islamic immigration" first started. Since most of them came from France's colonies, there was an inbuilt attitude of contempt towards them. Most of these workers, unlike the majority of European immigrants, were illiterate and coloured. They were housed in shantytowns or bidon villes that gave way to housing estates on the periphery of large towns. France's North African immigrant slums were born. In the minds of many, these ghettos are synonymous with crime, drug abuse and trafficking, illiteracy, violence and Islamic fundamentalism.

Politicians have been heard complaining that "certain communities, particularly the North African Arabs, refuse to integrate". Perhaps they have not been encouraged to integrate and perhaps they cannot integrate in the way in which the French understand and use the word. For one thing they look, speak and behave differently from most Europeans. The French view of "integration" is also at the heart of this problem. France is so stuck in the rut of being French that any suggestion about introducing Arabic in schools for children whose parents speak the language at home is equated to "a threat to the French national identity".

The French used to tell a joke about Mr. Le Pen. It went like this: Mr. Le Pen becomes President and decides to expel all immigrants. An old Algerian who fought for the French against his own compatriots asks to stay on. Mr. Le Pen says: "Yes, on condition you can tell which of my two eyes is genuine and which is made of glass." The Algerian correctly points to Mr. Le Pen' s left eye. "How did you guess?" Mr. Le Pen asks intrigued. "Mr. President," replies the Algerian, "It's the eye in which I detect a tiny glimmer of humanity." The French don't tell this joke anymore. It cuts too close to the bone.

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