The
Le Pens and France’s fear factor
The
far-right leader and her niece are already making political gains
after the Paris attacks.
By NICHOLAS VINOCUR
11/24/15, 5:30 AM CET Updated 11/24/15, 7:21 PM CET
PARIS — Few French
politicians are better positioned to capitalize on widespread
security fears and angst about Islam after the Paris terror attacks
than far-right leader Marine Le Pen and her 25-year-old niece,
Marion-Maréchal.
The National Front
party president and her ambitious relative, who are both seeking
election to powerful regional chairs in northern and southern France
next month, have taken to reminding voters at every turn, in a
variety of ways: We told you so.
It’s difficult to
say exactly how France’s worst-ever terrorist attack will redefine
the political landscape, or who will benefit and to what extent. One
survey conducted by Ifop after the slaughter showed that President
François Hollande’s approval rating had jumped by seven percentage
points to a still-dismal 27 percent, thanks largely to his quick
decision to call a state of emergency and crack down on terrorism.
But recent history
suggests that the bump, which analysts attributed to a reflexive rush
to authority, may be short-lived. In January, after the attacks on
the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, the Socialist Hollande enjoyed
an even bigger spike in the polls, only to see his popularity score
slide back to the mid-20s a few months later as Le Pen’s support
kept creeping upward.
The grace period
granted to France’s most unpopular leader since World War II by his
rivals has been far shorter than in January.
Eleven months ago,
Le Pen and other political opponents avoided harsh attacks on the
president. Last week, they showed no such restraint, rushing to
charge Hollande with major failures on every front, from foreign
policy to domestic intelligence.
Le Pen, as usual,
levied the most brutal criticism.
“If they had
honor, they would hand in their resignations,” the National Front
president told France 2 last week, referring to Hollande and his
cabinet. “Those who died in January died for nothing.”
Fear and Islam
Hollande could blunt
the Le Pens by preempting or dismissing their campaign proposals,
showing a strong response to terrorism at home and abroad and using
his presidential authority to drown out hecklers. Both he and Nicolas
Sarkozy, head of the center-right opposition party, boast experience
as statesmen, while the National Front chief is open to accusations
that her party lacks the management skills to run a country.
But for now, with
the hunt for suspected terrorists still underway in Belgium, and
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls warning about possible chemical or
biological attacks, the Le Pens are getting plenty of political
mileage from the climate of fear.
On Saturday, a
survey published by Harris Interactive showed that “security and
terrorism” had jumped to the top of voter concerns after the
attack, outstripping economic concerns.
This is welcome news
for the security-obsessed Le Pens, who have long pressed for a total
closure of French borders, stripping suspected jihadis with dual
nationality of their citizenship and shutting down mosques where
imams peddle radical forms of Islam.
Hollande co-opted
some of those measures, at least partially, during his speech to
Congress last Monday.
But a spokesman for
Marion-Maréchal Le Pen, who is running in the Provence-Alpes-Cotes
d’Azur region, said that voters knew which political leader had
raised the issues first and would prefer “the original to the
copy.”
“Security has
become the No. 1, if not the only, campaign issue after the attacks,”
said Franck Allisio, the Le Pen spokesman. “But she barely needs to
change what she was saying; she is just carrying on as she was
before, and voters can tell the difference.”
On top of tough talk
on immigration and security, the darling granddaughter of Jean-Marie
Le Pen has struck out with strong language on the practice of Islam
in France — a thorny issue that her aunt tends to avoid, preferring
to restrict her criticism to “fundamentalism.”
In an interview with
far-right magazine “Present,” the Catholic-educated
Marion-Maréchal said that Islam did not occupy the same “rank”
in France as Catholicism, given that the country was defined by 16
centuries of Christianity.
Muslims therefore
needed to “bend to” the customs of a country where people do not
wear veils, she said, in remarks that drew accusations, not least
from Christian Estrosi, her main center-right rival in the race, that
she was treating Muslims as second-class citizens.
“The remarks were
taken out of context,” Allisio said. “She meant that Islam could
not be dominant in France, just as Christianity would not be dominant
in Morocco.”
Such controversy has
done little to dim the younger Le Pen’s appeal in southern France,
a conservative region populated by many pensioners, “pieds noirs”
(Jews who fled to France from Algeria after independence),
traditional Catholics and military personnel.
On Sunday, an Ipsos
poll showed that Marion-Maréchal would win the first round of the
December 6 to 13 vote by a comfortable margin and go on to beat both
center-right and center-left rivals in the second round in the case
of a three-way runoff.
Ruling Socialists
had hoped to avoid that scenario by calling for a “Republican
Front,” by which the third-placed candidate would drop out and
rally behind the second. But while previous polls measured results
for a two-way runoff (Estrosi would win, 52 to 48 percent), this one
did not do so.
Authors:
Nicholas Vinocur
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