Marine Le Pen, the leader of the extremist National Front and the candidate of the extreme right, came in third place during the first round of France's presidential elections, after first-place winner and Socialist candidate Francois Hollande, who edged out President Nicholas Sarkozy by 1.5 percentage points. This result renders the extreme right in France a strong, new element in political life, whoever wins the presidency on Sunday, 6 May: Hollande or Sarkozy. The voters of the National Front are less educated than the norm, and the party has a wide reach among workers, as their leading party (35 percent of their votes go to the NF). They are victims of the economic crisis and strongly blame Sarkozy. Le Pen is popular among small merchants and female employees at department stores, and young people out of work, between 18 and 24 years of age. Her obsession is immigration. Le Pen wants to halt the import of foreign workers, especially those of Arab origin, and focuses on security in the country's cities and suburbs; she also wants to exit the Euro and rejects European sovereignty and the laws of the European Union, which dominate France. She also rejects opening borders based on the Schengen agreement. Certainly, Le Pen's popularity also comes from all of those who are afraid in France about the religious traditions of five million Muslims. Le Pen's campaign began to repeat, "Do French citizens know that all the meat they eat is halal?" The rise of her popularity is due to confirmed economic factors, but also from social factors that are certain: one in five French voters is afraid of Arab and Islamic traditions, which have come from the North African community in France, as well as the deterioration in security conditions in cities with Arab-origin populations, where the violence and lack of security have increased, because of rising unemployment for young people and the lack of true integration by Muslim immigrant communities. Le Pen, acting as the referee between candidates Hollande and Sarkozy, will be forcing them, during the campaign, to dispel this segment of the population's fears of immigrants and the lack of security, and its rejection of Muslim traditions in a secular state. The ruling UMP began a campaign against the burka and issued fines against those who wear it, which Hollande supported. Both candidates will try to attract Le Pen voters and assure them of victory in the presidential race, but Le Pen dreams is dreaming of a bloc of MPs for the NF in the next Parliament, to become the primary right-wing opposition in the legislature, and to re-form the right, under the umbrella of the NF. In this single-minded strategy of hers, Le Pen is waging war against both candidates, while focusing on destroying Sarkozy's image. She says that she will cast a blank ballot, and will not make an endorsement. But a percentage of her voters, in the end, might vote for Sarkozy, even if we do not know exactly how many of them will, amid the contradictory poll numbers. But there is a danger in the newly-emerging rise of the Le Pen's NF in France's democratic political life, with her opinions and ideas, and France's insularity from Europe, and the call to ban immigration, and defend repressive regimes such as those of Syria's Bashar Assad (she is the only one who has defended him). It is that if Le Pen gains a significant percentage of MPs in the coming legislative elections in June, she will be able to see this policy affect political and social life in France, especially since she stirs less fear than her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the honorary president of the NF. The elder Le Pen received fewer votes than his daughter in the 2002 elections, when he reached the second round against Jacques Chirac, who won a second term thanks to the votes of the left, frightened of Le Pen. Will the reverse take place on 6 May, as Hollande, the Socialist, wins with the votes of the extreme right? It is highly probable.
