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| Marion Maréchal Le Pen |
France went to the polls on Sunday in regional elections and the far-right National Front party, formerly known for its anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant stances but now known for its support of Israel and opposition to radical Islam, came out as a winner across the country.
The regional election outcomes are taken seriously since they are thought to be a bellweather for what will come when France votes in the 2017 national elections.
Though some have pinned the party's success on its occurrence so soon after the November 13 terror attacks in Paris, one Israeli expert told The Jerusalem Post on Monday that France has been moving to the right for years and is part of an overall trend in Europe of far-right parties becoming the mainstream.
Dr. Esther Lopatin, director of the European Studies program at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, said that Europeans are frustrated by leaders who have ignored their concerns about rapid immigration and radical Islam on the continent.
So while National Front leader Marine Le Pen has gone to great lengths to show that her party is no longer anti-Semitic (even to the point of saying she is a Zionist and kicking out the party's founder, her own father,
Jean-Marie Le Pen), Lopatin was careful to note that the party's fairly-recent rejection of anti-Semitism has not come from a sudden love of Jews, but rather from a realization that they share with the Jewish community a
common enemy in radical Islam...
The regional election outcomes are taken seriously since they are thought to be a bellweather for what will come when France votes in the 2017 national elections.
Though some have pinned the party's success on its occurrence so soon after the November 13 terror attacks in Paris, one Israeli expert told The Jerusalem Post on Monday that France has been moving to the right for years and is part of an overall trend in Europe of far-right parties becoming the mainstream.
Dr. Esther Lopatin, director of the European Studies program at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, said that Europeans are frustrated by leaders who have ignored their concerns about rapid immigration and radical Islam on the continent.
So while National Front leader Marine Le Pen has gone to great lengths to show that her party is no longer anti-Semitic (even to the point of saying she is a Zionist and kicking out the party's founder, her own father,
Jean-Marie Le Pen), Lopatin was careful to note that the party's fairly-recent rejection of anti-Semitism has not come from a sudden love of Jews, but rather from a realization that they share with the Jewish community a
common enemy in radical Islam...