Marine le pen

What a pleasure it was to see two socialist parties triumph in the most recent elections. First, Labour increased its share of the vote in Oldham — and then, last weekend, the Front National became France’s most popular party, securing almost 30 per cent in the first round of the country’s regional elections. Labour’s win was, I suspect, a bit of a false dawn. For a start, the party did an un-usual thing and fielded a sentient and likeable candidate, something which most of the time it successfully avoids doing. But even then, it was at least partly dependent upon Asian men hauling large sacks of votes from illiterate and

On Thursday evening, I queued outside for almost two hours to see Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s Front National party, speak at the Oxford Union. Thanks to protestors, who scaled the debating society’s walls and allegedly chased Union officials through the building, I then waited an hour more. About 200 anti-fascist demonstrators gathered outside the Union buildings, holding placards saying ‘Marine Le Pen… Never Again!’ and chanting ‘This is free speech, that is a platform’. Queuing quietly, it felt somewhat ironic to be called ‘Nazi Fascist Scum!’ by angry people in balaclavas. But as well as wanting to hear the views of the woman who may well become

Today’s huge Podemos rally in Madrid is a reminder that Syriza’s victory in Greece has emboldened the anti-austerity left across the Eurozone. What worries Angela Merkel and other northern European leaders is, as I say in the magazine this week, that any concessions to the new government in Athens, will lead to Podemos—a party which was founded less than 12 months ago—wining the Spanish elections later this year. But the country that most worries European policymakers isn’t Greece or Spain but France. Its economy is showing no signs of recovering and its politics are threatening to become very ugly indeed. A new poll published this week shows the Front National’s

A week before the attack on Charlie Hebdo, France’s leading gay magazine, Têtu, announced the winner of its annual beauty contest. His name was Matthieu Chartraire, and he was 22, doe-eyed and six-packed, with perfectly groomed hair, stubble and eyebrows. A pin-up in every way — until he started talking. To the anger of many of the magazine’s readers, the Adonis of 2015 turns out to be an outspoken supporter of the Front National. Têtu’s editor-in-chief, Yannick Barbe, refused to play censor. ‘It’s within his rights to vote for the FN even if we don’t share his beliefs,’ he said. ‘This is a beauty pageant, and our readers’ vote was

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_5_June_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Freddy Gray discusses the end of the French republic” startat=1844] Listen [/audioplayer]Last week President François Hollande, following his party’s humiliation in the European parliamentary elections (his Socialists won roughly half as many seats as the National Front), decided to cheer himself up. He left Paris and travelled to Clairefontaine to mingle with France’s World Cup football squad. ‘If you do win the World Cup final on 13 July,’ he told the millionaire players (most of whom avoid Hollande’s taxes by being paid outside France), ‘you will deserve a triumphant welcome. But we will not be able to give you the reception you will deserve, because the Champs-Elysées is

Nige, I write to warn you about a certain Italian with a big disturbing beard called Mister Beppe Grillo — your new friend who you met in Brussels on Wednesday. We are both, you and me, men of Kent. You Sevenoaks, me Westerham. We have much in common. You Dulwich College, me King’s Canterbury. We are both rebels because we both — despite being the wrong side of 50 – drink and smoke way too much — regardless. But, these days, I live in Italy. And you do not. So take it from me babe: leave well alone the Italian fried-air salesman Grillo who is an ‘ex’ communist and ‘ex’

Inevitably the lowest attacks have been saved until the week of the election. For months now the neat drip-feeding of anti-UKIP stories from Conservative Campaign Headquarters direct to the UK press has done everything possible to depict UKIP as a racist, xenophobic, bigoted party. This has been significantly ratcheted up ahead of Thursday’s vote. Today’s pages include the Times repeating a story from last year in the hope of successful guilt-by-association. The story is that Geert Wilders (the ‘Dutch Xenophobe’ as the Times headlines him) would like Nigel Farage to join him and Marine Le Pen in an anti-EU Brussels voting bloc. What neither the Times nor any other newspaper wishes

There is today only one united French political party, and it is the National Front. The FN has been profiting from a split French right, a hopeless French left and from the general disenchantment with the political class. It is tempting then to compare, as Agnes Poirier did in the Times, the FN’s recent success with that of Ukip in Britain. Tempting, but wrong. The National Front is 30 years older than Ukip, and a very different beast. It supports protectionist policies, while Ukip promotes a more libertarian and democratic approach. The FN’s ‘progressive tax’ – a rising income tax – clearly contrasts with the flat tax advocated by Ukip. Some