French National Front and British BNP.
Discussion
andy_s said:
No idea, but didn't they do well (12%?) in the locals yesterday?
From today's telegraph:"France's far-Right National Front (FN) has re-emerged on the French political scene after enjoying a surprisingly strong showing in regional elections on Sunday.
All but crushed after the 2007 presidential elections, the National Front, or FN, confounded polling predictions to reap almost 12 per cent of the national vote.
Mr Sarkozy’s Right-wing UMP group scored a worse-than-expected 26.18 per cent and is heading for a drubbing in next Sunday's runoff.
The opposition Socialists came in first with 29.48 per cent of the vote and are expected to join forces with the green-minded Europe Ecologie party, which came third with 12.7 per cent.
But the FN result was Sunday night’s biggest surprise, coming in the wake of a year-long recession in France and a regional campaign in which Mr Sarkozy’s camp has repeatedly beaten the drum of national identity and immigration."
From what I remember (my pen-friend was a supporter of Le Pen) the FN want to restrict immigration from outside Europe, send back most of the non-working nonEU migrants (ie ones who have come to France and live off the state), put restrictions on cheap imports to encourage "home grown" goods in France, protect French business and industry.
She did mention that Le Pen was very much a "traditionalist" and wanted to return to the values of a mother raising the children at home (so if a mother decided not to work, she'd be paid a wage by the state) and a France for the French.
Not sure how close this is to BNP policy, but I know that the Front National came close to becoming the government of France in 2002. In fact, their surprise success lead to mass voting for the party running against them which resulted in an 80ish% landslide win for Chirac (Chirac asked people to vote for the "lesser of two evils"). I think the French media had a huge impact on voting as everything was pro-Chirac and anti-Le Pen with mass demonstrations against the FN.
They might have changed their policies,but that's how they were a few years back according to my correspondant
She did mention that Le Pen was very much a "traditionalist" and wanted to return to the values of a mother raising the children at home (so if a mother decided not to work, she'd be paid a wage by the state) and a France for the French.
Not sure how close this is to BNP policy, but I know that the Front National came close to becoming the government of France in 2002. In fact, their surprise success lead to mass voting for the party running against them which resulted in an 80ish% landslide win for Chirac (Chirac asked people to vote for the "lesser of two evils"). I think the French media had a huge impact on voting as everything was pro-Chirac and anti-Le Pen with mass demonstrations against the FN.
They might have changed their policies,but that's how they were a few years back according to my correspondant
Edited by Monki on Monday 15th March 15:21
All reasonably true Munki. The French do a run off system for President. Le Pen was giving them all heart attacks with his popularity at the time. A large part of that was effectively an "anti" vote though, unfortunately that meant when he got through to go against Chirac it suddenly became serious. The large vote in the end against him was because it literally was a vote for the lessor of 2 evils as no way in hell were the general population of France going to vote him in. It gave Chirac an absolute landslide though and an uber-mandate. Which was pretty close to the last thing that France as a whole actually wanted.
Im not sure what the article Fitty mentioned was on about with their near destruction, they have remained as popular throughout the last decade as they were at the start of it. The poll result was due to the Bruni/Sarkozy effect which took more or less all the right wing votes at the National level. As that hasnt turned out too brilliantly, they havent been the all singing-all dancing wonder couple that was hoped for/expected, the votes from the right wing have returned to their factional parties.
Im not sure what the article Fitty mentioned was on about with their near destruction, they have remained as popular throughout the last decade as they were at the start of it. The poll result was due to the Bruni/Sarkozy effect which took more or less all the right wing votes at the National level. As that hasnt turned out too brilliantly, they havent been the all singing-all dancing wonder couple that was hoped for/expected, the votes from the right wing have returned to their factional parties.
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