Marine Le Pen: National Front

Sarkozy Dept: It sounded as if Mr. Sarkozy, who is lagging behind his left-wing opponents in the polls, had turned into Marine Le Pen, the charismatic leader of the borderline-fascist National Front, a once-taboo party that currently commands 17 per cent in the polls. Or, even more disturbing to many French and German observers, that he had turned into David Cameron, according to Globe and Mail. Of course, Mr. Hollande, who had been considered a centre-left moderate, has also been flirting with extremes in the runup to the April 22 first-round election. He has made speeches in which he has advocated a 75-per-cent top tax rate and said he would renegotiate the EU s fiscal pact, which places limits on the debt and spending abilities of member governments all in an apparent bid to capture votes from several parties on the far left and on Monday, many Europeans were reeling from a fiery speech Mr. Sarkozy gave in Paris the previous night in which he promoted trade protectionism, and attacked immigration and Islam. Most alarmingly to Germans, he threatened to cancel one of the key planks of European unification, the Schengen Treaty which eliminates borders and allows free movement of goods and people between 26 countries. I had the impression I was listening not to a French president but almost to a Conservative British Prime Minister, said Mr. Sarkozy s chief opponent, Socialist Party Leader Fran ois Hollande . Britain s rejection of the euro and the Schengen Treaty, and the Tories skepticism toward the EU, have made them anathema to both the left and the right on the continent. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.