The Holocaust was \a mere detail"" of World War II, boasts Jean-Marie Le Pen, the recent second-place victor in the first round of the French presidential election. But is there truly a need to worry when, at first glance, the facts suggest Le Pen's success is accidental? All things considered, he has no chance of winning the final round of the election against current President Jacques Chirac. Additionally, Le Pen's percentage of the electorate was 17 percent, a measly 2 percent above his 1998 showing. As such, the possibility lingers for this all to have been a great fluke, one where the two major first-round candidates, Chirac and Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, forced a split in the electorate, thus presenting an opportunity for Le Pen's triumph.
Nonetheless, the ability of Le Pen to capture the second-largest percentage of voters in the French electorate should spawn a period of questioning and concern regarding historical precedent among the French people and the Western world's population. For those unfamiliar with Le Pen, he is as anti-Semitic and racist as they come. The National Front, a right-wing extremist political party founded and led by Le Pen, prides itself on blaming foreigners for France's high crime and unemployment rate. Most recently, on April 26 the Associated Press reported that Le Pen said, ""France should set up 'transit camps' for illegal aliens and even organize a 'special train' to ship immigrants to Britain.""
The off-chance possibility for a man like Le Pen to forge victory should be viewed with greater significance than a simple ""fault"" in the electorate. Leaders do not create the times in which they live; they are the product of their times. Le Pen is representative of the sudden and recent surge in Semitic-based crimes and anti-foreigner sentiment throughout France'one not seen since World War II.
Anyone who doubts Le Pen's representation of the environment that has fostered his success need only look at what the numerous ""average"" French citizens who did vote for him had to say. One voter, quoted in an April 25 New York Times article, said, ""I like his ideas. We need to make sure that more goes to the French and less to the foreigners.""
Further in the article, the mayor of a French town attempted to explain Le Pen's political victory: ""There is fear of crime, but there is also fear of a more [economical] nature. It used to be that people worked all their lives for the same company. Now, ... companies fold, factories close. Life seems more and more precarious... So people like the sound of someone who says they can shut all the problems out.""
History has taught that times of economic instability and high crime are the most dangerous environments because they provide the predicate upon which individuals like Le Pen can grow. The 20th century attests to this historical theory. It appeared as if there was a great need for change in fortune within Germany during 1933 when the German people elected Hitler, whose campaign centered on blaming the Jews and foreigners for Germany's problems.
Dismissing Le Pen's victory as a fluke underestimates a real threat to and a significant problem in European society'intolerance. Europe's failure, once again, to act upon anti-Semitism when action, not talk, is needed, underscores Europe's greatest issue'short-term memory. It is almost as if the changing of calendars from the second millennium to the third somehow erased all the evils of the past. Or, worse yet, the many lessons learned from World War II, the Holocaust, racism, anti-Semitism and bigotry have vanished, as has that generation's testament regarding what happened.
Making reference to ""transit camps"" and ""special trains""'the exact names for the centers in charge of exterminating Jews, Gypsies and homosexuals during the Nazi regime's occupation of France'as viable ways to deal with modern social dilemmas is unwarranted, unwanted and inhumane. More disconcerting, however, is the degree of support shown for a politician espousing these ideas. At this moment, can we rationally consider the contemporary French population as being wiser than their historical predecessors?
