News Le Pen ousts Jospin from presidentialelections, raising international concern

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French far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen edged out Prime Minister Lionel Jospin in the first round of France's presidential election April 21, exit polls showed, and will face President Jacques Chirac in a runoff May 5.

"There is first and foremost the rejection of the people who have governed them so inefficiently ... and then the hope for change," Le Pen said on French television.

Founder of the National Front in 1972, the 73-year-old former paratrooper Le Pen has courted controversy all the way, sparking fury in the 1980s by saying the Holocaust was "a detail" in history

Le Pen's policies on immigration are clear. He favors French and European nationals for housing and welfare aid, preventing immigrants from moving their families to France and expelling all those without the proper papers.

But the greater focus of his campaign is on demands to combat a perceived surge in crime with the death penalty and 200,000 more jail cells, and to withdraw from the European Union, and verbal attacks on his main rivals Chirac and Jospin.

The score prompted international concern that France, a country with millions of immigrants drawn mainly from former colonies, is falling prey to racism. Parallels were made with other far-right successes such as that of Joerg Haider and his anti-immigration Freedom Party in Austria.

Yet analysts say rising anger at a smug political elite removed from "real life" lay behind Le Pen's success, rather than growing hatred toward immigrants.

Chirac ruled out a television debate with Le Pen April 23, saying he will have nothing to do with a man who encourages hatred.

仏大統領でルぺン党首決選投票へ

仏大統領選の第1回投票が4月21日行なわれ、「移民排斥」を掲げる極右のルペン氏が5月5日の決選投票に進むことが確定した。この結果に、国際社会から懸念の声が上がっている。

Shukan ST: May 3, 2002

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