Conjurers pull off their tricks by persuading their audiences to watch the hand that is not doing the fancy work and not actually carrying out the trick. Thus the suspension of the former leader of France's National Front Jean-Marie Le Pen, by his party, is not all that it seems to be. Le Pen, the founder of France's neo-fascist party has been implicated in a tax avoidance scandal in which it is alleged that he kept millions of euros in a Swiss bank account. There have also been allegations that he may have channelled party funds for his own use. None of this has been proven. But the National Front has not hesitated. It is looking to expel the very man who brought it into being almost 45 years ago. But watch the other hand! The thing with conjurers is that we know that they are about to practice a deception on us. The enduring fascination is that we cannot figure out how they are doing it. The clearest indication of this léger de main is that the person behind the apparent downfall of Le Pen is his very own daughter, Marine Le Pen, his successor as National Front leader. Marine Le Pen has been openly critical of some of the more idiotic statements made by her father. One of these was to dismiss the murder of six million Jews and gypsies and others whom the German Nazis considered undesirable, as a “mere detail of history”. This, of course, led to outrage from Europe's liberal establishment. Holocaust denial is a crime in some European countries, including France. But as Le Pen well knew, his controversial remarks would go down well with the National Front's core constituency. These are the poor, often underpaid if not indeed jobless white working class. They blame migrants for taking away their jobs. They also blame international capitalism with its disproportionate number of Jewish figures for their misfortunes. The failure of successive governments to repeal ruinous labor laws and to cut back on the welfare featherbedding that the French economy has never really been able to afford does not enter into their calculations. Nor indeed does their own frequent unwillingness to do a decent day's work for a wage set in a competitive market place. The fact that migrants are prepared to take on these jobs for pay levels that French workers consider demeaning is conveniently ignored. The overwhelming sense of injustice and hardship, meted out by someone else, underpins the massive grievance into which the National Front has tapped so adroitly. No National Front supporter really believes that Marine Le Pen has cut her father loose. They are also pretty well convinced that the charges against the old man are trumped up by a vindictive French state that will do everything it can to frustrate the drive of the National Front to win power. Jean-Marie Le Pen is now a very old man, who nevertheless retains an acute political radar. He knows very well that his party is likely to actually benefit if he becomes a martyr to a vengeful French establishment. If he is indicted for tax fraud, he is most unlikely to live long enough to be convicted. His last gift to the party, and surely also to the daughter that he loves, is to make himself a victim of official state persecution.
