After the second round of the French regional elections and the cynical way the Front National was excluded from power, it is time to re-run this article, which was originally published at the time of the French Presidential elections in May 2012. In the first round of that election Marine Le Pen managed to poll 17.9% of the vote and failed to make it into the second round.
by Colin Liddell
The trouble with European politics is that the so-called “extreme” parties are not really extreme enough. This is especially clear from the case of France, where the comparatively mild policies of the Front National have been described throughout the campaign as “extreme” and “far right-wing.”
Like most people, I am not a fan of extremism. But we live in an era when extreme things are happening all around us, so to act with conventional moderation is the equivalent of turning down the heating when the house is on fire.
Centuries of history, including scores of major wars, dozens of invasions and revolutions, and tens of millions slaughtered in battle, have not sufficed to change the ethnic and cultural character or France. However, mass immigration and differential birth rates threaten to do what the likes of Attila the Hun, Moslem Crusaders, English longbowmen, French Revolutionaries, and German panzers failed to do: i.e. change France in its very essence.
Like most people, I am not a fan of extremism. But we live in an era when extreme things are happening all around us, so to act with conventional moderation is the equivalent of turning down the heating when the house is on fire.
Centuries of history, including scores of major wars, dozens of invasions and revolutions, and tens of millions slaughtered in battle, have not sufficed to change the ethnic and cultural character or France. However, mass immigration and differential birth rates threaten to do what the likes of Attila the Hun, Moslem Crusaders, English longbowmen, French Revolutionaries, and German panzers failed to do: i.e. change France in its very essence.
