-Caveat Lector-
>From http://www.nationalpost.com/
> Maybe he just loathes Arabs even more than Jews (which, for
> linguistic pedants, would make him technically a perfect
> anti-Semite).
This guy has the key!!!
}}}>Begin
April 25, 2002
The Eurosnots learn nothing
Mark Steyn
National Post
On Sunday, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the alleged extreme right-wing madman, managed
to place second in the first round of the French Presidential election. Since then,
many Europhile commentators in the English- speaking world have been attempting
to reassure us that the significance of this event has been much overplayed -- Le
Pen only got a little more than he usually gets, pure fluke he came second, nothing to
see here, move along. The best response to this line of thinking was by the shrewd
Internet commentatrix Megan McArdle: "They're completely missing the point, which
is that it's hilarious."
Absolutely. You'd have to have a heart of stone not to be weeping with laughter at
the scenes of France's snot-nosed political elite huffily denouncing Sunday's result
as an insult to the honour of the Republic. I was in Paris a couple of weeks ago and I
well remember the retired French diplomat who assured me that "a man like George
W. Bush is simply not possible in our politics. For a creature of such crude,
simplistic
and extreme views to be one of the two principal candidates in a presidential election
would be inconceivable here. Inconceivable!"
Please, no giggling. Somehow events have so arranged themselves that French
electors now face a choice, as the papers see it, between "la droite" et "l'extrême
droite." The French people have taken to the streets in angry protests against ... the
French people! Which must be a relief to the operators of McDonald's franchises,
British lorry drivers and other more traditional targets of their ire, but is still a
little
weird. Meanwhile, the only thing that stands between M. Le Pen and the Elysée
Palace, President Chirac, has declared himself the representative of "the soul of the
Republic." In the sense that he's a shifty dissembler with a long history of financial
scandal and no political principles, he may be on to something.
While M. Chirac has cast himself as the defender of France, M. Le Pen is apparently
the defender of the Jews. While I was over there, he was the only candidate who was
seriously affronted by the epidemic of anti- Jew assaults by French Muslims. The
Eurosnots told me this was "cynical," given that M. Le Pen is notoriously anti-Jew and
not above doing oven jokes in public. But that doesn't necessarily make him cynical.
Maybe he just loathes Arabs even more than Jews (which, for linguistic pedants,
would make him technically a perfect anti-Semite). Maybe he just resents the
Muslims muscling in on his turf: "We strongly object to the Arab attacks on the Jews.
That's our job." But, given that Chirac and Jospin brushed off the Jew-bashing
epidemic like a speck of dust on their elegant suits, Le Pen's ability to co-opt it
into
his general tough-on-crime/tough-on-immigrants approach showed at the least a
certain political savvy.
Still, despite the racism and bigotry, I resent the characterization of M. Le Pen as
"extreme right." I'm an extreme right-wing madman myself, and it takes one to know
one. M. Le Pen is an economic protectionist in favour of the minimum wage, lavish
subsidies for France's incompetent industries and inefficient agriculture; he's anti-
American and fiercely opposed to globalization. In other words, he's got far more in
common with Naomi Klein than with me. He would fit right in as a guest host on the
CBC's CounterSpin. Even the antipathy toward Jews is more of a left-wing thing
these days -- see the EU, UN, Svend and Mary Robinson, etc. Insofar as anyone
speaks up for Jews in the West, it's only a few right-wing columnists, Newt Gingrich,
Christian conservatives and Mrs. Thatcher -- or, as a reader e-mailed the other day,
"all you Hebraic assholes on the right." M. Le Pen is a nationalist and a socialist --
or,
if you prefer, a nationalist socialist. Hmm. A bit long but, if you lost a syllable,
you
might be in business.
But terms like "left" and "right" are irrelevant in French politics. In an advanced
technocratic state, where almost any issue worth talking about has been ruled
beyond the scope of partisan politics, you might as well throw away the compass.
The presidential election was meant to be a contest between the supposedly
conservative Chirac and his supposedly socialist Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin. In
practice, this boils down to a candidate who's left of right of left of centre, and a
candidate who's right of left of right of left of centre. Chirac and Jospin ran on
identical platforms -- they're both in favour of high taxes, high unemployment and
high crime. So, with no significant policy differences between them, the two
candidates were relying on their personal appeal, which, given that one's a fraud and
the other's a dullard, was asking rather too much of French voters. Faced with a
choice between Eurodee and Eurodum, you can't blame electors for choosing to
make it a real race by voting for the one guy running on an openly stated, clearly
defined manifesto.
M. Le Pen wants to restrict immigration; Chirac and Jospin think this subject is
beneath discussion. Le Pen thinks the euro is a "currency of occupation"; Chospin
and Jirac think this subject is beneath discussion. Le Pen wants to pull out of the EU;
Chipin and Josrac think this subject is beneath discussion. Le Pen wants to get
tough on crime; Chispac and Jorin think this, too, is beneath discussion, and that
may have been their mistake. European Union and even immigration are lofty,
philosophical issues. But crime is personal. The French are undergoing a terrible
wave of criminality, in which thousands of cars are routinely torched for fun and more
and more immigrant suburbs are no-go areas for the police. Chirac and Jospin's
unwillingness even to address this issue only confirmed their image as the arrogant
co-regents of a remote, insulated elite.
Europe's ruling class has effortlessly refined Voltaire: I disapprove of what you say,
but I will defend to the death my right not to have to listen to you say it. You might
disapprove of what Le Pen says on immigration, but to declare that the subject
cannot even be raised is profoundly unhealthy for a democracy. The problem with
the old one- party states of Africa and Latin America was that they criminalized
dissent: You could no longer criticize the President, you could only kill him. In the
two-party one-party states of Europe, a similar process is under way: If the political
culture forbids respectable politicians from raising certain topics, then the
electorate
will turn to unrespectable politicians -- as they're doing in France, Austria, Belgium,
the Netherlands, Denmark and elsewhere. Le Pen is not an aberration but the logical
consequence.
The Eurosnots, of course, learn nothing. President Chirac, for his part, has
announced that he will not deign to debate his opponent during the remaining two
weeks of the campaign. M. Le Pen beat M. Chirac in nine of France's 22 districts.
Unlovely he may be, but he is the legitimate standard-bearer for democratic
opposition to Chirac. By refusing to engage, the President is doing a grave disservice
to French democracy. Similarly, Gerhard Schroeder, facing difficult electoral
prospects this fall, is now warning German conservatives that he will decline to
participate in a "campaign of fear" -- i.e., on touchy issues. But the way you defeat
poisonous ideas is to expose them to the bracing air of open debate. In Marseilles,
they're burning synagogues. In Berlin, the police advise Jews not to leave their
homes in skullcaps or other identifying marks of their faith. But Europe's political
establishments insist that, on immigration and crime, there's nothing to talk about.
A century and a half ago, Tsar Nicholas I described Turkey as "the sick man of
Europe." Today, the sick man of Europe is the European -- the urbane Continental
princelings like Chirac and Michel, gliding from capital to capital building their
Eutopia, oblivious to the popular will except on those rare occasions, such as
Sunday, when the people do something so impertinent they finally catch the eye of
their haughty maître d'. I've said before that September 11th will prove to be like the
Archduke's assassination in Sarajevo -- one of those events that shatters the known
world. To the list of polities destined to slip down the Eurinal of history, we must
add
the European Union and France's Fifth Republic. The only question is how messy
their disintegration will be.
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