Spewing Hatred in France

...THE POLITICS OF PROVOCATION Spewing Hatred in France BY JANICE VALLS-RUSSEL JEAN-MARIE LE PEN Paris Last April Abbe Pierre, an elderly priest long respected for his crusade on behalf of France's homeless, rose to defend Roger Garau-dy's The Founding Myths of Israeli Politics, a book then in the process of being banned under "antinegation" statutes for minimizing Nazi atrocities Garaudy is a Protestant-turned-Cathohc-turned-Marxist-turned-Muslim, and nothing he says or writes surprises anyone here anymore But even an initial indulgence of the priest's "naive" loyalty to an old friend rapidly gave way to bewilderment and indignation For in June, during an interview, he went on to equate a Biblical account of Jewish heavy-handedness with the Holocaust "When Joshua crossed the Jordan to enter the Holy Land," Abbe Pierre submitted, "he killed everyone down to the last chicken It was the Shoah before the Shoah ' The 83-year-old cleric thus seemed to be reviving the anti-Jewish teachings that once underpinned the catechism A further complication was the fact that in his fight against social injustice he had become associated with far Left circles whose pro-Muslim sympathy is so rife it is hard to discern where legitimate criticism of Isi ael ends and anti-Semitism begins All of this moved the French Catholic hierarchy to distance itself from Abbe Pierre, who withdrew to the golden silence of an Italian monastery The end of the unfortunate affair did not mean, of course, that Garaudy was left without supporters Bigotry, like racism, continues to have its champions here Most prominent among them is the leader of the extreme Right-wing National Front (FN), Jean-Mane Le Pen In one of his more recent blustenngs he derided President Jacques Chirac's mid-September tour of Auschwitz as a visit to dead ancestor s"—implying that the neo-Gaull-lst is Jewish, and that only Jews would care about what transpired there Le Pen resents Chirac's public apology last year for the Vichy government's role in deporting tens of thousands of Jews during the Nazi occupation If anyone is owed an apology, he maintains, it is him—for having been tied, without proof, to the 1990 desecration of France's oldest Jewish cemetery, located outside the southern town of Carpentras That incident shocked the country and prompted then President Francois Mitterrand to lead a Pans rally in solidarity with the nation's Jewish community It was attended by 100,000 people carrying banners proclaiming "Never Again" and "We are all Jews " But this spring, amid speculation that a gang of teenagers seeking macabre excitement committed the desecration, the FN staged a self-righteous "We are innocent" rally in Carpentras Shortly afterward, four men confessed to the crime and claimed to have been motivated by the far Right sympathies they held at the time In a letter released to the press, one of them wrote to his lawyer ' I realize that I was influenced by the hate and xenophobia of National Janice Valls-Russell writes about French and Spanish affaus for the NL Front speeches They know how to brain-wash weak young people who are going through difficult times 'The letter also asked the lawyer to apologize to the family of a man whose body the vandals had exhumed In September, the man's widow was attacked and injured under murky circumstances heightening the suspicions of some that the ai rests and confessions were too good to be true Le Pen complains of a "political plot" to discredit him, but the hate he and his entourage have been spewing out is there for all to witness After the Atlanta Olympics, for instance, he denigrated the medals won by France's "foreign" (read nonwhite) athletes This summer, too, a National Front member of the Euiopean Parliament lamented that 'Christian eunuchs are welcoming Negroes in our churches"—a reference to the more than 200 Africans then seeking refuge in a Pans chuich to escape expulsion Increasingly brazen, Le Pen himself no longer hesitates to baldly declare that some i aces are more equal than others' He has been just as bold about attacking his critics When Jewish-born Cardinal Jean-Mane Lustiger spoke out against him, Le Pen called him a renegade, when Alain Juppe denounced him as a "racist, anti-Semite and xenophobe...

...Le Pen labeled the Prime Minister a criminal against humanity' On September 14, coldly ignoring a father's plea that his son s death not be exploited for political ends, the FN held a rally in Marseilles to condemn what it characterized as the "anti-French, racist murder ' of one teenager by another of Moroccan descent Despite the observation in Le Monde that the demonstration was "being prepared like a symbolic pogrom," and the provocative admission by Le Pen's second-in-command, Bruno Megret that the march is prompted by the murderer's origins," it was allowed to be held as scheduled Symbol became reality when some of the 6,500 people who turned out roughed up a number of North African passersby The FN s continuing string of outbursts and rabble-rousing events has led to calls for action from rights groups and parliamentary deputies on both the Left and Right In response...

...One reason seems to be that the Socialists are currently ahead in the polls and may well make a comeback in the next elections, especially if their efforts to form an alliance with the Greens and moderate Communists succeed A return to proportional representation might result in the Greens and Communists opting to go it alone, and thus undermine Socialist chances in 1998 Furthermore, the presence of FN deputies could prove useful to the neo-Gaull-ists on such issues as immigration control and reducing public expenditures Indeed, some Centusts worry about a Rightward slide by Chirac after the next elections—unless there is a "cohabitation' with a Socialist government As for Le Pen, he must be feeling pretty good about himself these days His party secured 15 per cent of the vote in the first lound of last year's presidential election, and has attracted even more support in certain regions by linking immigration to unemployment and criminal violence In several recent local contests FN candidates won 30-40 per cent of the vote (albeit with a low turnout) They weie beaten only narrowly in the second round by across-the-democratic-spec-trum support for their opponents The National Front has been skillfully exploiting disillusionment with corruption in political and business circles In addition, it has sought to capitalize on residual irritation with last year's strikes in the public sector (The FN openly questions the sector's virtueZs, though most French respect its overall efficiency and democratic outlook ) Characteristically, a Nationalist leaflet consists of a strip cartoon positing that nonwhite families are moie likely than white ones to get subsidized housing More broadly, French institutions are dismissed as "worm-eaten," the country itself as "decadent," "powerless" and "rotten," and politicians as "crooks ' At a late-September rally Le Pen thundered "I solemnly swear that once I am in power they will have to account for their deeds and pay for them with their lives' Sadly, quite a few people are not turned off by him Asked in a recent poll if they were dismayed by his statements on race, a third of the respondents answered "no " About 40 per cent said they shared some of the National Front's ideas Among neo-Gaullists the figure was 59 per cent (On a certain level, it is true, some of those ideas can be perfectly respectable An example is the call for reaff irmrng tra-ditional values, which, as one Socialist put it, we have tended to leave to the National Front") In southeast France, fear of an "invasion" from across the Meditenanean has ensured steady support foi the FN Elsewhere, party faithful have methodically moved in where the Communists once held sway—particularly in rundown high-rise working-class areas where unemployment and anch ethnic mix rub shoulders uneasily With 13 per cent unemployment, it may not be surprising that 15 per cent or so of the French electorate says it is willing to vote for an ever more cocky National Front But it is worrying...

...Justice Minister Jacques Toubon has said he plans to in-troduce tougher antiracism legislation in the National Assembly Many Socialist deputies welcome the notion of stronger statutes Several neo-Gaullists ai e decidedly unhappy about it, while others simply believe enough laws exist already Still others are inclined to agree with Deputy Alain Madelm that silencing Le Pen will achieve nothing The best way to counter him, the former Finance Minister argues, is to rebut his ideas forcefully "Human beings are different Every one of us is unique, which is why we are all entitled to equal dignity" Concern about Le Pen s bigotry polluting the halls of the National Assembly again has motivated the French Council of Jewish Institutions and other civil rights organizations to lobby against a Juppe proposal to reintroduce proportional representation This, they note, would reopen Par-liament's door to small parties, including the National Front, winner of 35 seats in 1986 following Mitterrand's similar electoral reforms That year the victorious neo-Gaullists and then Center-Right allies pushed through a bill restoring the first-past-the-post system Why a reversal now, when Chirac's backers have a huge parliamentary majority...