10 percent of the vote in France, and thernmore fiercely the fever burned, the soonerrnthe temperature returned to the levelsrnfavored by representatives of internationalrncooperation and world trade. The NationalrnFront has now seen nearlv 25 yearsrnof steady growth. This year’s presidentialrnvote (in two stages) followed in short orderrnby the municipal elections (also inrntwo stages) confirmed its appeal.rnThe presidential elections were supposedrnto be between two Gaullists, thernmayor of Paris, Jacques Chirac, andrnPrime Minister Eduard Bahadur. ThernSocialists, in despair, held a kind ofrnAmerican-style primary, out of whichrnemerged Lionel Jospin, best known asrnthe Minister of Education who approvedrnthe right of Islamic girls to wear theirrnveils in France’s secular public schools.rnThe polls indicated that Le Pen wouldrnbe lucky to get 10 percent of the vote.rnThe first round was a shocker. Jospinrnwon 22 percent, edging out Chirac,rnwhose 20 percent beat Balladur’s 18 percent.rnLe Pen’s 15 percent was onl- a fewmillionrnvotes away from each of thernCaullist candidates. If the polls had notrnmisled voters, Le Pen might well havernwon the several million votes he neededrnto make it into the second round, wherernChirac ended up beating Jospin. Therernwas an exceptionally high number of abstentionsrnand wasted ballots.rnThe municipal elections were expectedrnto confirm rightist control of therncountry, since the right held a large majorityrnin the parliament. Instead, therernwere few clear-cut victories in the firstrnround, and in many cities the NationalrnFront won from 25 to 40 percent of thernvote. The Socialists called for a “democraticrnfront,” where they would yield tornCaullist candidates who were in the bestrnposition to beat the Front, if the traditionalrnright would withdraw in citiesrnwhere Socialists were ahead. Chirac preferredrnto leave the country for the G-7rnmeeting in Canada without approvingrnany such agreement, which would havernwon a number of cities at the cost ofrnproving Le Pen’s point, that the majorrnparties are a conspiracy against thernFrench people. The Socialists joinedrnforces with their old allies, the Communists,rnto defeat the Front and were successfulrnin a number of northern cities,rnbut the FN won outright in three southernrncities, including the port of Toulon,rnand a Le Pen fellow traveler becamernmayor of Nice.rnThe precise details of the votes are lessrnimportant than their strategic significance.rnThe attempts of the past tworndecades to demonize the National Frontrnhave been a resounding failure. “InrnTourcoing, if you put an FN sign on anrnass’s neck, he’ll take 30 percent of thernvote.” That wisecrack is true of manyrnFrench cities, north and south. Betweenrnthe presidential elections of 1988 andrn1995, Le Pen’s share of the working classrnvote rose from 18 to 27 percent, whilernthe Socialist Party candidates’ share declinedrnfrom 43 to 20 percent. As the leftistrnNouvel Observateur put it, “The NationalrnFront is the leading working classrnparty in France.” The FN has alsornchanged the debate on immigration, forrnyears dominated by the open-borders extremistsrnof SOS Racisme. Responsiblernleftists no longer call for open borders.rnThey are trying to keep current immigrantsrnfrom being deported, and theyrnare not succeeding. In the moments ofrnleisure left him by organizing Europeanrnresistance to the Serb Freedom Fightersrnand frustrating the attempts of Creenpeacc’srnRainboM’ Warrior U to disruptrnFrance’s renewed atomic testing (his Socialistrnpredecessor, Mitterrand, planted arnbomb on the original Rainbow Warrior,rnkilling an environmentalist), Chirac isrndeporting immigrants at a furious rate.rnLeft and right now admit that the NationalrnFront is not going away becausernthe issues are not going away. Islam isrnnot a form of personal piety. It is a truernculture that affects every part of a person’srnlife, from the girl’s veil to the man’srnquintuple daily genuflection. France’srnIslamic minority is not assimilating, pacernrandom anecdotes to the contrary, and itrnis massively outreprodueing the nativernFrench. What is more, Muslims canrn”under-live” the average Frenchman andrnso can survive on jobs, petits boulots,rnwhich the increasingly university educatedrnFrench will not take. While immigrationrnis crushing the French worker fromrnthe bottom, global free trade hand inrnhand with social democracy is cripplingrnthe French standard of lixing, though notrnthe French economy. As Sir James Goldsmithrnpoints out in The Trap, in the lastrn20 years the French GNP has grown anrnamazing 80 percent, but, at the samerntime, unemployment has grown fromrn400,000 to over 5 million. Governmentalrnintrusion and corruption are not goingrnaway, either. Aroused French votersrnstripped the corrupt Socialist Party of itsrncontrol of parliament. Increasingly importantrndecisions will be made by thernbureaucrats of the European Union inrnBrussels, and over them the French voterrnwill have little or no control.rnAre there lessons here for the UnitedrnStates? Are massive immigration, thernflight of jobs to the Third World, and arncorrupt and out-of-control governmentrnissues here? At one million immigrants arnyear, we let in more immigrants than thernrest of the wofld combined. NAFTA hasrnalready had the effect that GATT will accentuate,rna steady rise in the GNPrnaccompanied by massive “downsizing,”rni.e., unemployment. This summer arnSouth Korean firm purchased majorityrncontrol of Zenith, the last AmericanrnTV manufacturer. For Americans thernchange was largely symbolic, of course.rnMost Zenith TV sets are assembled inrnMexico. As for murderous corruptionrn(e.g., Waco, Ruby Ridge, Whitewater,rnthe not very mysterious death of VincernFoster), three years of Clinton are alreadyrnchallenging 14 years of Mitterand.rn(Those who were outraged at the promotionrnof Larry Potts after his handling ofrnWaco and Ruby Ridge will be glad tornknoy that the French secret agents whornplanted the bomb on the Rainbow Warriorrnwere sentenced to years of exile . . .rnon Tahiti, not exacfly Devil’s Island.)rnIn France, Le Pen has said for yearsrnthat left and right are meaninglessrnconcepts. France is ruled by une socialrndemocratic mondialiste, a one-party globalistrnsocialist regime. The same situationrnholds true for America. Naturally, thernmedia are not silly enough to tell this tornthe American people, any more thanrnthey let on that Mareia Clark goes outrndrinking with Johnnie Cochran whenrnthe O.J. trial adjourns for the day.rnFrench politics has lessons for us.rnOne, the issues at the heart of a principledrnnationalism are not going away andrncan form the basis for an enduring politicalrnand cultural movement. Le Pen hasrna summer school for his young adherentsrn(this summer’s theme: M droite nirngauche, Frangais!). The majority of votersrnbetween 18 and 25 avoided leftistrncandidates. We need to think about thernlong term. Tvyo, if Pat Buchanan is thernRepublican nominee, leftist and liberalrnnationalists need to swallow hard andrnsupport him. Conservative nationalistsrnneed to understand that if the COPrnnominee is Pete Wilson, we have to supportrnhim. It is time for nationalists tornunite against globalists if we expect tornlive in a world where our other ideologicalrndifferences will even make sense.rn46/CHRONICLESrnrnrn