France's far-right Marine Le Pen: ‘Arab Spring had turned into an Islamist winter’.
Le Pen's attacks on Islam are no longer veiled: The "anti-white racism" debate is another example of France's centre right embracing the rhetoric of the far right. Marine Le Pen's time has come and she knows it.
In Le Monde on 20 September, Le Pen declared that the ‘Arab Spring had turned into an Islamist winter’, one which would in turn threaten Europe as the cold chill of Muslim fundamentalism forced many to flee their countries. In a context of, albeit marginal, social unrest and violence, Le Pen felt vindicated and again at ease with the old extreme tropes she had attempted to conceal during her campaign. In a style reminiscent of her father’s most conspiratorial tones, she declared that the ‘ Innocence of Muslims affair’ was ‘eminently suspect’. She did not believe that chance was responsible for the release of the video on a ‘Salafist television channel’ just before 11 September. Similarly, in the most traditional extreme right style, she accused the US of allowing ‘Islamic fundamentalists’ to take over many countries in the Middle East.
After years of the legitimisation of the Front National, Marine Le Pen was in this case able to rely on formerly progressive rhetoric to justify her stigmatisation of Islam. Her harsh proposals aiming at the singling out of an already victimised minority were made in the defence of republican ideals: ‘secularism is a non-negotiable value, just like liberty’.
That Islam was Le Pen’s target, rather than the defence of republican or democratic ideals, was further highlighted in relation to Syria. Asked why she felt that a secular dictatorship is better than a religious one, and why the international community should negotiate with Bashar al Assad, Le Pen affirmed that people ‘ lived better under secular ones’, and certainly had ‘more freedoms than under Islamic fundamentalist’ regimes.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/le-pens-attacks-on-islam-are-no-longer-veiled-8181891.html
Even though her party did not do as well as many had expected in the recent election, Le Pen knows never to admit defeat or change course. She is still plowing ahead with her "anti-white discrimination" charges and Muslim-bashing. And Sarkozy's party used far-right rhetoric so much during the campaign that her views seem more legitimate and she knows it.
Interesting that she is a supporter of secular dictators, like Assad, for Muslim countries and makes not pretense of promoting democratic ideals.
