{"id":429863,"date":"2010-03-15T14:17:38","date_gmt":"2010-03-15T18:17:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.reuters.com\/faithworld\/?p=12420"},"modified":"2010-03-15T14:17:38","modified_gmt":"2010-03-15T18:17:38","slug":"%e2%80%9cno-to-islamism%e2%80%9d-campaign-boosts-france%e2%80%99s-national-front-in-poll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/429863","title":{"rendered":"\u201cNo to Islamism\u201d campaign boosts France\u2019s National Front in poll"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Jean-Marie Le Pen at a rally in Marseille on March 7, 2010. The placard reads "No to Islamism. Youth with Le Pen" and shows a map of France covered by an Algerian flag and minarets\/Jean-Paul Pelissier <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, playing on fears over the spread of Islam, has regained the political initiative in France with a strong result in regional elections that poses a problem for President Nicolas Sarkozy. <\/span><\/p>\n

Bouncing back from a string of recent reversals, Le Pen’s National Front won a surprise 11.74 percent of the national vote in Sunday’s first round ballot and will dilute support for Sarkozy’s conservative block in crucial run-offs on March 21. Aged 81, Le Pen himself enjoyed a remarkable personal triumph, winning 20.29 percent backing in the southern French Provence-Cote d’Azur region, which has absorbed hundreds of thousands of mainly North African immigrants in recent decades.<\/p>\n

A government move in 2009 to organise a broad debate on national identity rekindled interest in the far right by reviving controversies over how to deal with immigrants and Islam in a country that has Europe’s largest Muslim population.<\/p>\n

Le Pen, who has said the regional vote will be his last election campaign, proved astute at leveraging concerns over radical Islam, plastering billboards with a poster showing France covered by an Algerian flag, a veiled woman and minarets.\u00a0 “No to Islamism,” read the slogan.<\/p>\n

Read the whole analysis here.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"le<\/p>\n

National Front rally with Jean-Marie Le Pen Marseille, March 7, 2010\/Jean-Paul Pelissier<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/strong>Follow FaithWorld on Twitter at RTRFaithWorld<\/span><\/a><\/strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jean-Marie Le Pen at a rally in Marseille on March 7, 2010. The placard reads "No to Islamism. Youth with Le Pen" and shows a map of France covered by an Algerian flag and minarets\/Jean-Paul Pelissier Far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, playing on fears over the spread of Islam, has regained the political initiative in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6220,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-429863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6220"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429863\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}