The dramatic second-place triumph of anti-immigrant populist Jean-Marie Le Pen in French elections on Sunday sent tremors of fear through a Jewish community already buffeted by a wave of attacks.
Pollsters said President Jacques Chirac would handily defeat Le Pen in a presidential runoff vote on May 5. But French Jews and Muslims alike pointed to the victory for Le Pen as a dangerous sign of French intolerance of minorities.
Members of the Muslim community viewed Le Pen's showing negatively but were more reticent to comment before the candidate expanded on his policies.
"It is France which has lost today. It's difficult to believe that many French people voted for Le Pen," hospital worker Sami Fitouri told Reuters. "He has never presented any ideas about the economy or his social program. He has just been campaigning on xenophobic ideas."
Fuad Imarraine, manager of the Tawid cultural center in Seine Saint Denis, north of Paris, said: "I hope this is a protest vote but I am not sure. In any case these elections reinforce our determination to work to change things."
Meanwhile, according to AFP, Le Pen's electoral success was greeted with horror in Israel, with many newspapers describing him as an "unabashed racist."
Israeli public radio said Monday Le Pen was "neo-fascist, racist, anti-semitic and xenophobic."
The most circulated daily Yediot Aharonot wrote it was shocked by Le Pen's success in Sunday's first round of voting in which he surprisingly knocked socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin out of the race.
"One French person out of six voted on Sunday for the extreme right leader who once described the Holocaust as a 'detail' of history," said the newspaper. It said that even many Jewish voters had voted for Le Pen because of their "hatred for Arabs".
The paper said France's Jewish community, which has suffered a spate of violent attacks in recent weeks as Israeli-Palestinian violence has worsened, was living in a state of fear.
The Maariv daily said Le Pen's success could "provoke a chain reaction in other countries and stoke the rise of fascist and anti-immigrant feeling."
Haaretz wrote about a "historic success for the extreme right", and also stressed that Le Pen had benefited from support from France's Jewish community.
In an interview with Haaretz published Friday Le Pen said he "totally understands the state of Israel which is seeking to defend its citizens" in cracking down on the Palestinians." He added that "Fortunately there will never be Islamic unity." (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
