French right-wing populist Le Pen attracting voters by railing against immigration and globalization

[pampango]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,772875,00.html

French politician Marine Le Pen is attracting new voters to the National Front, the right-wing populist party founded by her father, by railing against immigration and globalization. With France's elections a year away, Le Pen is already polling ahead of President Nicolas Sarkozy.

She warns against refugees from Tunisia, and against immigrants in general. She demands social welfare systems for the French instead of for immigrants. And then she finally gets to her central issue: the fight against globalization, which Le Pen says is destroying France. She wants to leave the euro, reintroduce customs borders and nationalize banks.

When Jean-Marie Le Pen founded the National Front in the 1970s, he also invented European right-wing populism. With his slicked-back hair, horn-rimmed glasses and the eye patch he wore in the early years, he was the caricature of the ugly right-winger, notorious for his efforts to downplay the Holocaust. Le Pen came across as a tyrant, a monster from another time, a man who did not hesitate to shout at and even physically assault his adversaries. His supporters included deeply conservative Catholics, right-wing extremists and Vichy diehards -- but the majority were disappointed protest voters.

Like her father, Le Pen is critical of immigration, but unlike him, and similar to other European right-wing populists, she focuses on attacking Islam. She speaks of the disintegration of society into ethnic groups, and criticizes prayers in the streets and fast food chains advertising halal meat. But she speaks even more about social issues and the fight against the international financial world, and about "intelligent protectionism," ...