"Vote for civilization!", Marine Le Pen tells French

Marine Le Pen, leader of  the Front National, today excoriated globalization and Islamic fundamentalism and called on the people of France to vote for civilization!

In her closing speech to this weekend's party at Lyon, Mme Le Pen blasted the "two totalitarianisms" threatening France. "We are at a crossroad...," she told the crowd. "This election is a choice of civilization." She asked whether her three children and other young citizens would have the rights and culture of the current generation. "Will they even speak our French language?"

Yesterday, to applause and cries of "On est chez nous!" ("We are at home!"), Mme Le Pen unveiled her "144 Commitments" -- a nationalist agenda that envisions a France unshackled from the European Union and NATO, that puts French people first. She promised drastic cuts in immigration, to ensure work, health care and other services for French citizens first.

Mme LePen said she is defending France's patrimony -- material and immaterial -- "which has no price" and is "irreplaceable." Running on the campaign slogan "In the Name of the People", she called on all French patriots, whether of the left or right to join with her. In politics, she explained, "the division is no longer right-left (but) patriot-globalist. You have your place at our side."

The FN leader told a cheering crowd that globalization is erasing France, just as Charles de Gaulle said predicted some six decades ago. Islamic fundamentalism is "planting itself in some neighborhoods...and vulnerable minds," she said, listing Muslim veils, mosques and prayer in the streets as unacceptable cultural dangers that "no French person...attached to his dignity can accept."

Talking about the effects of massive immigration, Mme Le Pen said, "When you arrive in a country, you don't start violating laws, demanding rights.... There will be no other laws and values in France but French."

Mme Le Pen's 144 Commitments include a promise to limit immigration to no more than 10,000 per year, and restrain "family reunification" policies that haave allowed many immigrants from former mainly Muslim French colonies such as Morocco and Algeria to bring in relatives. She also promised to add 15,000 police and 6000 border patrol officers, and to arrange for foreigners convicted of crimes to serve their prison terms in their homelands.

The French go to the polls this spring to elect a new president. Opinion polls show Mme Le Pen as favoured to win the first-round vote on 23 April. Whether or not she would win the run-off, on 7 May, depends on who opposes her. The socialists and right-wing parties are in disarray, beset by scandals, making it possible that a hitherto unknown centrist, Emmanuel Macron to be the other name on the final ballot. Walt will be watching closely.

Note from Ed.: Thanks to Poor Len Canayen for helping with translation. He reports that a lot of folks in La Belle Province wish a Marine Le Pen would emerge there, tout de suite!