France: François Fillon is Going to Give Le Pen a Serious Challenge

Andrew Anglin
Daily Stormer
November 26, 2016

So, I was surprised Jew Sarkozy lost the primary. But I assume that is because I was just seeing the English media coverage.

The man who won, François Fillon, is more hardcore than Sarkozy in his rhetoric. Of course, like Sarkozy, he is pro-EU. That is the only issue currently setting Le Pen apart, and the reason the Daily Stormer endorses her for President of France.

But is she going to be able to beat a man who speaks more strongly about Islam and immigration than she does – and is even pro-Russia – on that issue alone?

It’s going to be difficult, I’d say.

New York Times:

A patriotic sea of supporters, waving red, white and blue flags, greeted the newly ascendant presidential hopeful François Fillon this week at a soulless conference center in this suburb of Lyon.

Mr. Fillon described radical Islam as a “totalitarianism like the Nazis” to the cheers of an enthusiastic crowd, adding that France would need Russia’s help to fight it. Catholics, Protestants and Jews “don’t denounce the values of the Republic,” he thundered — unlike the faithful of a certain other religion.

“We’ve got to reduce immigration to its strict minimum,” he said. “Our country is not a sum of communities, it is an identity!”

In a year when nativist politics have become the ticket to electoral victory, Mr. Fillon, 62, a dark-suited, stern-faced former prime minister has managed to successfully ride the same nationalist and xenophobic currents as that have pushed politicians in Britain and the United States to victory.

For months, Mr. Fillon polled third and even fourth among presidential contenders in France and was largely dismissed. But his defense of French values and identity has suddenly made him the front-runner as France’s right-center Republican Party prepares to vote Sunday in a runoff to choose its standard-bearer in the 2017 elections — and quite possibly the next president of France.

That strategy has not only vaulted Mr. Fillon to the front of the pack, surprising the French news media, pundits and politicians. It has also has shifted the playing field for French conservatives far to the right, snug alongside the far-right National Front, led by Marine Le Pen, who may be his strongest challenger next year.

The two are now competing for some of the same voters, but the xenophobic, anti-immigrant National Front is not regarded as respectable by many middle-class French people, particularly Catholics.

Mr. Fillon, on the other hand, has positioned himself as a staunch defender of French values, vowing to restore authority, honor the Roman Catholic Church and exert “strict administrative control” over Islam.

Such appeals were met with fervent cheers during his campaign rally here by supporters who agreed that French identity and French values were under threat from both Islam and the secular left.

If those themes sound familiar to the ones that already shaped pivotal votes in Britain and the United States this year, it is because they are. And Mr. Fillon, an unsmiling political veteran, has used them to remarkable effect in France to change his political fortunes.

Few analysts give France’s Socialists and their unpopular president, François Hollande, a strong chance in the spring. But Mr. Fillon, with his dark-eyed frown, suggests a return to authority, and the rally crowd of about 5,000 here loved it.

“He really respects French values, and that is very, very important to us,” said Vincent Robert, a man in late middle-age who said he was a retired artisan.

“There is uprightness and frankness,” Mr. Robert said. “And incredible enthusiasm for him in the middle class.”

His friend Bruno Perrin, a retired management consultant, was equally in thrall. “It’s his defense of values — Christianity, the family, our traditions — that is what we like,” he said.

Mr. Fillon’s supporters say he is now the candidate best placed to bar Ms. Le Pen’s path to victory.

And the entire establishment will support him.

Because just like with Orban in Hungary, it doesn’t matter how hardcore you are on any issue as long as you don’t confront the EU. Because any resistance can be fully crushed by the central EU government as the power is solidified.

Fillon is an aggressive supporter of the EU agenda.

As Politico notes with regards to the Margaret Thatcher comparison the media is pushing:

Only on Europe does Fillon differ with Thatcher. Proposing an overhaul of institutions, he wants to form a eurozone government, integrate EU defense capabilities and beef up protection of exterior borders.

“Integrate EU defense capabilities” is a euphemism for “build an EU army.” That is now a thing.

The long run is over.

Germany is pushing for rapid integration in response to Brexit, to attempt to ensure that all member states will be so wrapped up in this web they won’t be able to escape in the future.

Whereas Sarkozy was critical of the EU, this guy is full-on – using the hard anti-Isalm rhetoric as cover.

If Le Pen wants to win, she’s going to need a better bag of tricks than she’s got right now.

If I were a member of the National Front right now, I would be pushing to have her replaced with a male figure who isn’t a chronic flip-flopper. But they’re not going to do that.