Three weeks ago, I went on a spring break with my family to Pairs. While visiting Place de la Bastille, I noticed the July Column was under renovation. And I wondered if that is the current state of the French Republic as well. That week nearly all European newspapers were predicting Marine Le Pen to be the next president of France.
On April 23rd French presidential elections, Le Pen and Macron prevailed in round one of the contest. She came second behind Emmanuel Macron, a left-leaning centrist. They will face off in a run-off election on May 7th.
The first round was about selecting your candidate, the second is about eliminating one. And that is where it is like an American contest now. I look at top five concerns in the upcoming French election as a global citizen who is also a visible religious minority. I can’t vote in France, but I am certainly a keen observer of the new global-right’s rise built on ultra-nationalistic and xenophobic mindset, and its looming effects. Among other things, 200% increase in Franco-Iranian business within last year is in jeopardy, as both nations elect their new leaders this May.
Le Pen’s policy positions line up with that of Donald Trump: she wants to make France “more French.”
Many people have a reason to worry about Marine Le Pen. Her father, Jean Marie, co-founded the National Front party in 1972 which became a haven for racists and anti-Semites. Jean Marie Le Pen notoriously dismissed the Nazi gas chambers as a mere “detail” of history and was repeatedly found guilty of the Holocaust denial. Marine inherited Jean Marie’s party and is now one of the two candidates to be the next French president.
Marine Le Pen is like Donald Trump: a populist candidate who rallies support from the far-right using ultra-patriotic nationalistic language with a promise to keep France free of illegal immigrants and protect citizens from terrorism.
Immigration
She is campaigning to keep “France French” and prevent foreigners from flooding the country. “Just watch the interlopers from all over the world come and install themselves in our home … They want to transform France into a giant squat. But it’s up to the owner to decide who can come in. So, our first act will be to restore France’s frontiers … Will we be able to live much longer as French people in France, while entire neighbourhoods are being transformed? … It is right for us not to want our country transformed into a mere corridor, a giant railway station.” (NYT, 20 Apr 2017)
Donald Trump’s campaign focused on deporting illegal undocumented immigrants from the United States, Marine Le Pen even speaks negatively of legal immigration.
She will expel illegal immigrants from France because they “have no reason to stay in France, these people broke the law the minute they set foot on French soil.” She believes French citizenship should be “either inherited or merited” to “reduce immigration to its strict minimum.” (BBC, 10 Feb 2017)
She will reduce net migration by 80% to 10,000 people per year to defend France against “savage globalisation.” Her proposal freezes long-term visas and hits company hiring foreign workers with a 10 % tax. Le Pen said: “This does not constitute a moratorium on tourist visas, and we are also excluding students requesting their visa for the following year … I will protect you. My first measure as president will be to reinstate France's borders … This is our home! … Mass immigration is not an opportunity for France, it’s a tragedy for France.” (The Independent, 18 April 2017)
Religion
Voltaire warned us: “So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannise will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men.”
Le Pen will ban people from wearing symbols of religion in public, including headscarves, yarmulkes, and turbans.
The following script is very telling from “Le Pen” which aired on CNN on 5 Mar 2017 with Anderson Cooper:
Marine Le Pen (translation): France isn’t burkinis on the beach. France is Brigitte Bardot. That’s France.
Anderson Cooper: Should Muslim people be allowed to wear headscarves?
Marine Le Pen (translation): No. I’m opposed to wearing headscarves in public places. That’s not France. There’s something I just don’t understand: the people who come to France, why would they want to change France, to live in France the same way they lived back home?
Anderson Cooper: Would a Sikh person allowed to be (SIC) wear a turban?
Marine Le Pen (translation): No, not in public. We don’t have a lot of Sikhs in France. We’ve got some. But we don’t really hear much from them or about them. Which is good news.
Le Pen is either not aware of the turban wearing Sikh contributions to free her country or wants full assimilation into French society for she believes “massive immigration brings with it cultures that are sometimes in contradiction with our values.”
While gazing at the Arc de Triomphe on the day I arrived in Paris a couple of weeks ago, I reflected on what the people of France need to be reminded of Sikhs and their role in securing their liberty. Lt. Gen. Baljit Singh remarks are telling:
“Whenever the controversy centred around the Sikhs and their turbans resurfaces in France, my memory invariably reaches out to a slice of history from 1915 as recorded in the chronicles of World War I. For 10 turbaned Sikh soldiers using six spare turbans, wriggled and dragged two boxes of mortar bombs and two of machine-gun bullets, under withering German shelling and automatic fire, in the mid-day sun for about 25 minutes, till at last just one box of bombs was eventually delivered to their beleaguered colleagues.”
At the same time, the last two Indian administrations (Manmohan Singh and Narendra Modi) have failed to address Sikh concerns in France.
Just like the Sikhs in France about a century ago, the Sikhs today remind the world: 'to show their contempt for death, some Sikhs had refused to hide in the trenches’ (see excerpts from a collection of The Guardian report from the First World War).
Le Pen praised Trump’s travel ban, indicating the willingness to do something similar in France like Muslim ban. Responding to Christiane Amanpour, Le Pen said: “It is a temporary measure. It targets six or seven countries, countries that of course are responsible for terrorist threats. So I think Donald Trump and his intelligence services wanted to set up criteria and conditions to avoid having potential terrorists enter the United States, where they might commit attacks, the same way that France was the victim of attacks.” (CNN, 1 Feb 2017)
Frexit?
Le Pen wants to renegotiate France’s relationship with the European Union. In an interview with BFMTV on 3 Jan 2017, Le Pen outlined her vision as leader of the Republic:
Interviewer Jean-Jacques Bourdin: “Do you wish for France to leave the European Union? So that things are clear, I’m asking you directly - yes or no?”
Le Pen: “No, I think we need to renegotiate with the EU because I want to see French sovereignty restored in France, supported by a referendum.”
As French President, she would hold a referendum on European Union membership. “If I am voted in, I will announce that a referendum will be held in six month’s time. I will spend those six months going to the European Union and telling them: ‘I want the French people to regain at least their territorial sovereignty because I want to control the borders - they don’t belong to you.’” (The Independent, 5 Jan 2017)
On 18 Apr 2017 TV interview on French channel TF1, Le Pen insisted that a European Union flag be removed from the studio before the interview begin. She insisted only French flag be visible behind her because she is campaigning to be president of France, “not of the European Union.” She later explained in a statement that the EU “did great harm” to France and its citizens.
Russia
Throughout the campaign, Trump praised and defended Putin. Le Pen is following suit.
The Russian intelligence agencies are trying to influence the French election the same way they did the US election. As Republican Sen. Richard Burr, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, recently stated, "I think it's safe by everybody's judgment that the Russians are actively involved in the French elections."
Just this week it was revealed that campaign staff for Emmanuel Macron had been targeted by suspected Russian-linked hackers. Recall Russian hacking of Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party.
This can’t be a surprise to anyone, let alone Macron’s supporters!
French Voters
Emmanuel Macron, Le Pen’s opponent, is in favour of keeping immigration open, allow religious articles of faith and keep France in the European Union. Like Hillary Clinton, he is a globalist establishment candidate tied to high finance who held a senior cabinet position in the previous national government.
Le Pen is running her campaign like Trump pandering to the white supremacists while being anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim. Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke publicly praised both Le Pen and Trump.
The establishment, the press, and the polls were all proven wrong by the Trump victory. Will Le Pen manage to pull a Trump?
I don’t believe so.
Trump lost the popular vote by 2% and Le Pen (in the first round) by 3%. Le Penn’s supporters are like that of Trump: rural and geographically dispersed. But, France doesn’t have an Electoral College system like the one in America. And because of that critical difference, nationalist Le Penn is not likely to be the next French president.
While standing outside Maison de Victor Hugo three weeks ago, I wondered if the French voters will recall how Victor Hugo captured the struggles and humanity of those who have been condemned to marginality. I end with Hugo’s universal voice in a letter to the Italian minister:
You are right, sir, when you say that the book Les Misérables is written for all people. I don’t know if it will be read by all, but, I wrote it for all. It speaks to England as much as Spain, to Germany as much as Ireland, to republics that have slaves as well as to empires that have serfs. Social problems know no borders. The wounds of the human race, those great wounds which cover the globe, do not halt at the red or blue lines traced upon the map. Wherever man is ignorant and despairs, wherever a woman is sold for bread, wherever the child suffers for lack of a book to instruct him and a hearth at which to warm him, the book Les Misérables knocks at the door and says: “Open to me, I come for you.”
Harinder Singh Source: Supplied
Harinder Singh is an educator, thinker, author, public speaker and activist who tweets @1Force. He currently serves as the Senior Fellow, Research & Policy, at the Sikh Research Institute. He served on the boards of the National Conference on Community and Justice, The Fellowship of Activists to Embrace Humanity, The Nanakshahi Trust, among others. He regularly appears on radio and television programs globally.
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