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Journalism of Courage
Ultimately Jean-Marie Le Pen, for all his notoriety, turned out to be an opponent every politician dreams about. By spewing out enough bilge to flood the sewers of Paris, the ex-paratrooper ensured that a man France had loved to hate until the other day, who was reviled for his corrupt ways and his lying tongue, went on to win the elections by a record 82 per cent of the vote. Jacques Chirac registered the highest ever margin of victory for a presidential candidate in the 44-year history of the Fifth Republic. He literally drove many very unlikely Chirac supporters into the 8216;j8217;aime Jacques8217; camp, including the radical gay group, 8216;Act Up8217;! Dare we then suggest that President Chirac award Le Pen with at least a Legion d8217;Honneur, for rendering exemplary services to both Chirac himself 8212; by getting him the handsome win 8212; and the nation 8212; by reminding the French that they faced an extraordinary threat.
Until a week ago, before the results of the first round of the French presidential elections had come in, most people in the country had dismissed Le Pen for the xenophobic joker he appeared to be. A walking repository of every paranoia under the sun, he peddled an extraordinary collection of hatreds. Le Pen detested international capitalism and internal communism; he detested Islam and he detested Jews; he detested the Masons and he detested immigrants; he detested the EU and he detested the euro; he detested gays and he detested Blacks; he detested globalisation and French welfare systems that 8216;8216;gave outsiders more than what they got in their own countries8217;8217;. He also had an extremely loose tongue and gave public vent to any stray train of vituperative thought that snaked its way through his mind, articulating what was hitherto left unsaid. Therefore he saw Nazi death camps as just a 8216;8216;detail of history8217;8217; and felt that 8216;8216;if we end up with 100 million foreigners in this country, France will no longer be France8217;8217;.
