Not mine:
"New chance for far-right in French parliament vote" by Elaine Ganley |
Associated Press, June 08, 2012
HENIN-BEAUMONT, France - Far-right leader Marine Le Pen's ultimate plan is to explode the mainstream right of
former President Nicolas Sarkozy to become the main opposition to
Socialist President Francois Hollande. Her party claims to be the sole
ally of French sovereignty in a multicultural, globalized nation under
the boot of Brussels, the governing seat of the European Union.
Le Pen’s antiglobalization mantra and disavowal of the
euro find resonance in this joyless red brick town where unemployment is
at some 20 percent and factory after factory has closed down. Her drive
against “Islamization’’ also gets listeners, even though the Muslims
here are largely descendants of North Africans of France’s former
colonies who came to help work the now-shuttered mines.
That's when I start tuning out.
“The region is increasingly doomed,’’ said Leonardo
Colangela, a former schoolteacher whose father immigrated here from
Italy. He runs a brasserie on the main square in Henin-Beaumont, one of
the few in town. “The big industry closed, and the little ones are
following. No one wants to set up here.’’
He scans the social horizon with the eye of a specialist:
fragile families, youth without education. And a Muslim population who
“came and lived to work,’’ joining other coal miners in building the
region’s prosperity. “The first Arabs here didn’t scare you.’’
Today, Colangela said, with the economy in a shambles,
“if a Frenchman steals, it’s more easily accepted than if an Arab does .
. . People are afraid.’’
Le Pen feels at home in this hardscrabble land, and is
trying to craft a new image to erase the stigma of racism and
anti-Semitism that clings to the National Front....
It's actually an honor to be called an anti-Semite at times.
--more--"
Also see: French President François Hollande achieves gender parity of sorts
You would expect better from the French left, right?
