He talks about the occupation of France and how he is going to organise its liberation although the political

He talks about the “occupation” of France and how he is going to organise its “liberation”, although the political genes of his party descend from the collabora-ting Vichy regime. He compares himself constantly to General Charles de Gaulle, even though De Gaulle was detested by the Vichy sentimentalists and the French Algeria movement, which forms another part of the National Front’s genealogy.All these words and phrases have double uses and meanings They are intended to anger his enemies. They many not even be overtly racist, although they are pre-occupied by North African and black immigrants and their alleged responsibility for France’s much-exaggerated crime wave Mr Le Pen dwells on these themes. The artist Marc Chagall was Jewish.Most of Mr Le Pen’s voters, as opposed to party members, are not actively anti-Semitic. In the next sentence, he described the motley alliance arrayed against him – from “Soviet” bishops to the far left – as something from a “Chagall painting”.

This was followed by a reference to the “grand patronat apatride” (stateless big business), which has been a European far-right code phrase for “Jewish money and influence” for more than 100 years. We do not accept that the murder of millions of Jews was a crime against humanity. We do not believe the Vichy government that collaborated with the Nazis betrayed France.”In the space of one minute in the middle of his 80-minute open-air speech on Wednesday, Mr Le Pen used three “innocent” words or phrases that are anything but innocent in the lexicon and demonology of the far right.He used the word “rafle”, which is only ever used these days to describe the arrest of Jews in wartime France. But, according to Laurent de Saint-Affrique, his former communications director, they have another meaning for his hard-core supporters They say: “I am one of you. These are words almost exclusively associated with the arrest and deportation of French Jews by the Vichy government and Nazis during the Second World War.Of course, Mr Le Pen used the words out of context. He spoke of setting up “transit camps” for illegal immigrants, of creating “special trains” to send Sangatte refugees to Britain and he accused the “corrupt” French establishment of organising a “rafle”, a round-up, of artists and sportsmen to attack him.His use of these words is, on one level, a vulgar and brutal joke, intended to infuriate the French chattering classes. By Mr Le Pen’s own words – his most recent words – you can know him.In the past two weeks, he has used the words “round-up”, “transit camps” and “special trains”.

If Mr Le Pen scores more than 30 per cent, the crisis in French politics and society will continue, even deepen.To get the true measure of Mr Le Pen, of the evil he represents, it is not necessary to engage in a detailed examination of his incoherent policies or turbulent life history (from Algerian torturer, to street brawler, to millionaire by dubious means). The French people will decide tomorrow whether their next president will be a tarnished democrat or a racist demagogue. Click here to read Ian Herbert on the BNP in the English local authority elections
The French people will decide tomorrow whether their next president will be a tarnished democrat or a racist demagogue.The great danger to the poll is that many hundreds of thousands of French people have been convinced that Jean-Marie Le Pen is a plausible man: a politician of extreme, sometimes unpleasant views, but finally a rumbustious democrat and a warm-hearted patriot, who “asks the right questions”.The overwhelming likelihood is that he will be defeated by President Jacques Chirac, although not necessarily by the margins – 79 per cent to 21 per cent – suggested by the final opinion polls. But even a landslide will leave many people still feeling discontented and unheard in its wake.. The greater the number of erudite luminaries who have taken to the air waves and newspaper columns to dismiss far-right voters as “stupid”, “ill-informed” or “mistaken”, the greater these voters’ resentment and determination to repeat the “mistake”.Tomorrow, these places in Paris, as well as the big cities of the east and south, such as Strasbourg, Marseilles, Nice and Montpellier, will be barometers of how deep such feelings run. A lacklustre final rally for Mr Le Pen in Marseilles, compared with Mr Chirac’s rapturous 20,000 audience outside Paris, the million who marched on May Day, and the projected turn-out, all point to a landslide victory for Mr Chirac.