Le Pen's Rise in Prominence Triggers Political Earthquake in France & Sends Shockwaves Across Europe

20/04/2002| IslamWeb

Jospin Quits After 5th May Run Off.
Chirac Expected Win Landslide But Le Pen Dismissies Forecasts as Nonsense.
French Police Use Tear Gas to Disperse Demonstrators.

PARIS (Reuters) - A stunning upset by far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen in France's presidential election triggered a political earthquake in France on Monday and sent shockwaves across Europe over the rise of the radical right.
With the left effectively leaderless after Jospin's humiliating defeat, the odds rose that the centre-right with Chirac at its head could win a majority in parliamentary elections to a new National Assembly in June.

Le Pen, savouring his sweetest victory in four runs at the presidency, dismissed forecasts of a May 5 rout as nonsense.
French police used tear gas to disperse demonstrators in Paris early on Monday as thousands protested against the shock triumph of far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen in the first round of presidential elections.

Earlier police said there had been isolated cases of vandalism but no major disturbances and no arrests.

Street marches, which earlier had swelled, to an estimated 10,000 people were beginning to wind down, witnesses said.
Marchers also massed in Lille, Lyon, Bordeaux, Grenoble and Strasbourg.

Le Pen, the 73-year-old leader of the anti-immigrant, anti-Europe National Front party, pushed Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin into third place in the contest.

Jospin announced on Sunday that he would quit politics after the May 5 runoff round, which polling institutes now forecast Chirac, a conservative, would win by a landslide.

Le Pen, who once called the Holocaust a detail of history, played down some of his more extreme rhetoric during the campaign, which he focused on law and order in a response to widespread public concern over rising crime.

He dismissed the fascist label some of his opponents have given him in remarks on French television. "I have nothing to do with fascism," Le Pen said. "Fascism is protesting the result of a vote violently in the street."