WORLD leaders reacted with relief on Monday after French President Jacques Chirac trounced extreme right-winger Jean-Marie Le Pen in an election that had cast a cloud over France’s image on the world stage.
With almost one voice, governments in Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and Asia lauded the result as a resounding defeat for the “racism” and “demagoguery” of Le Pen.
“It’s a victory for democracy and a defeat for extremism and the repellent policies Le Pen represents,” said British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Latest results gave Chirac more than 82% in the second-round run-off against Le Pen, the National Front leader widely reviled for outbursts including a dismissal of the Nazi gas chambers as a “detail of history”.
Le Pen’s first round success two weeks ago had set off a political earthquake in France and shudders throughout Europe over his fiercely anti-immigrant, anti-EU platform.
“The extremist, isolationist policies of Jean-Marie Le Pen have been rejected and crushed,” said European Commission president Romano Prodi. “Today the French people have once again demonstrated that their nation belongs to the heart of Europe.”
Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Pique, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, said: “France has reaffirmed the values of a united Europe and refuses nationalism, which is exclusive. It has reacted as it should have reacted and as we hoped it would react.”
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder concurred. “The French people have rejected extremism without ambiguity,” he wrote in a message of congratulations to Chirac, who at 69 is preparing for a new five-year term in office.
Meanwhile, French immigrants, relieved at the Le Pen?s crushing defeat said Chirac faced a huge task integrating their community in France.
Interviewed as they gathered in Paris to toast Chirac’s win against Le Pen, who had campaigned on an anti-immigration ticket, many said the incumbent had contributed to the rise of Le Pen’s National Front (FN) by ignoring the needs of ordinary people.
Mamba, a 19-year-old student from Ivory Coast said at a pro-Chirac rally at the Place de la Republique, that it was up to the president to show leadership after winning more than 80% of the vote in the run-off and “work for everyone in France during his second term.
“I’m not at all sure whether Chirac is the man for change”, Fernando, a 23-year-old Peruvian said.
“He’s been in office for seven years, and he hasn’t done much for foreigners in that time.”
Pierre Paparembor, a Frenchman married to a Brazilian woman, agreed. “Chirac never had a policy of integration of foreigners in France.
And he is not representative of a change in French politics, he’s of the old school,” the 33-year-old Parisian said.
“It is essential that Le Pen was beaten,” Boubakar Mieke, a 30-year-old student from Somalia said at the sidelines of a noisy rally by leftist groups at nearby Place de la Bastille.
He said the resounding defeat of Le Pen showed there was little room in France for xenophobia and racism.
But political leaders “cannot afford to ignore the 17-18% of voters who chose Le Pen” and their worries over rising crime and juvenile delinquency in France.
Kass Ibrahim, a 26-year-old Parisian, said he voted reluctantly or Chirac and doubted anything would change in the 69-year-old Gaullist’s second term in office.
“It’s the same old story over and over again,” Ibrahim said, warning that Chirac had to move quickly to fight crime.
“Insecurity comes from unemployment, and Chirac has to listen to the people who voted for the FN. They voted FN for a reason.”
Joseph Makala came to France from the former Zaire, nowadays the Democratic Republic of Congo, more than 20 years ago, and now teaches in a high school outside Paris.
He said people knew well what Le Pen stood for, and it was not enough for Chirac to merely denounce hatred and demagoguery, but to take action, especially on behalf of immigrants.
“One of the biggest problems in France is that immigrants do not have anyone who speaks for them on the political stage,” he said.
Assia Kadri is a French national of Algerian descent, and despite her French passport, she faces daily hurdles in her search for work and an apartment.
“I may be French, but I don’t ‘look’ French,” the 23-year-old mother of two remarked, adding that landlords deliberately raise the prices on apartments just to keep her out.
“Some of the apartments I’ve seem are tiny, have no toilet or
shower, and go for 500 or 600 euros ($460 to $550). How am I supposed to afford that?” Kadri asks, who because of her age and circumstances can not draw any welfare benefits.
“Neither the politicians nor the French people in general are interested in integration,” she says, “and it won’t change during Chirac’s second term, either.” – AFP