In 1989, the then prime minister, Miehel Rocard, liad therneourage to protest aloud that “la France ne peut pas accueillirrntoutes les miseres du munde” (France cannot welcome all thernpoor of the world). It was just about the wisest statement thatrnhas so far been made on the subject. But it was not enough tornsae this honest socialist from electoral defeat in his own constituency,rnthe now ethnically strife-torn industrial center ofrnConflans-Saint-IIonorine, northwest of Paris.rnOne of the things that has blurred the bitter, present-day realitiesrnof French society and politics has been the stupid habitrnof calling Jean-Marie Lc Pen’s National Front a “right-wing”rnpartw In strict fact, the National Front, which is now in numericalrnterms France’s leading workers’ party, is no more arn”right-wing” party than was Adolf Hitler’s NSDAP—the National-rnSozialistische-Deutsche-Arbeiter-Partei—which to thern’cry end of the Third Reich proudly advertised itself as both arn”socialist” and a “workers’ party” in order to emphasize its popularit-rnwith the laboring masses of Germany. The reason whyrnFrench working men and women have been abandoning therntraditional parties of the so-called “left” and flocking to the NationalrnFront in droes is because thc)’ are fed up with the shopwornrnrhetoric of “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,” which has nornrelevance today to the conditions of eeryday life in their oncerntranquil suburbs.rnThe most vociferous of these woolly-headed sloganmongersrn—in addition of course to the professional “anti-racist” agitatorsrnof the North and black African communities—are tliernpampered intellectuals of the “gauche caviar” (the “CaviarrnI jcft”) who would not dream for a monrent of abandoning theirrnsafe apartments in the fifth, sixth, and se’enth arrondissementsrnof Paris to live in one of thc manv slums of metropolitan Paris.rnDuring a hastih altered program of Bernard Pivot’s Fridaycx’cningrntelevision program “Bouillon de Culture,” in thc immediaternwake of the National Front’s election victory in the southernrncity of Vitrolles, the fulminating film director BernardrnTaernicr publicly adscrtised his fraternal love of Paris slumdwellersrnby saying that more than once he and his cast of actorsrnand technicians had feadessly set up their cameras and recordingrngear in suburbs like Saint-Denis and Aubervilliers onrnthe northern outskirts of Paris. His performance was a gem ofrn”left-wing” hypocrisy, for to make a “fearless” foray into a tensernslum area is not quite the same thing as actually having to livernthere.rnAs Jcan-Frangois Re’el, one of France’s most penetratingrnobserxers, noted in a commentary published in the weekl L,ernPoint:rnThe program of thc National Front, which wants to bootrnout all foreigners, and that of the petitioners, who wantrnto bring all of them in, are equally impractical and immoral.rnFor both ensure the irremediable failure of integration,rnthat age-out tradition which was and should remainrnthe honor of France. According to their usualrnoperating tactics, the intellectuals or automatons of thernLeft, or who claim to be such, arc thus organizing thernpractical destruction of the ideal to which the’ are inrntheor’ committed. This is no way to be a friend of thernimmigrants; it is to be their worst enemy.rnIn agreeing to suppress an “iniquitous” clause in a new immigrationrnbill which would have authorized maors to check uprnon the status of immigrants granted three-month visas—a normalrnadministrative requirement in any rational country—thcrngovernment of Alain Juppe was simply following the lax examplernof its predecessors in bowing to the pressure of “the street.”rnFor the disturbing truth is that France’s political elite has quiternsimply capitulated under the pressure of “anti-racist” terrorism,rnand of the kind of intellectual chantage (blackmail) which thernSpanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset anah zed so propheticallyrn(though in a slightly different context) in The Revolt of thernMasses. Which is to say, more than 60 years ago, when ValeryrnGiscard d’Estaing was barelv four, Michel Rocard a month-oldrnbaby, and Jacques Chirac as et unborn.rnMulticulturalismrnby Harold McCurdvrnThe Hutus and the Tutsi,rnRwanda and Zaire,rnI lave added more confusionrnTo what was never clear.rnDark Africa grows darkerrnFrom the Suez to the Cape;rnNot even Harvard doctorsrnCan cope or quite escape.rnThc ladies of SomaliarnHave put them to the test:rnWhat manner of circumcisionrnWill suit their daughters best?rnThc doctors fa or slittingrnThe elitoral prepuce.rnThe ladies want the whole arearnCored out against abuse.rnHarvard is stumped by whetherrnTo nick or to ablate;rnThe Hutus and the TutsirnRefuse to integrate.rnDown with thc Declaration!rnFor better or for worsernWe’re not created equalrnBut diverse, diverse, diverse.rnJULY 1997/19rnrnrn