Students from France gathered outside the French consulate in Boston on Wednesday to show their opposition to the strong showing of extreme-right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen in the first round of France's presidential elections.
But the surprisingly high vote for the extreme-right candidate, Marine Le Pen, boosted the overall figures for the right and meant that the final runoff vote on 6 May remains on a knife edge.
The extreme-right candidate, Jean-Marie Le Pen — Marine's father, an eyepatch-wearing former paratrooper and gleeful racist, who famously called the Holocaust a "detail" of history — had been polling a weak fourth.
Even if the Republicans win a majority in the House, he says, they are "just as unpopular as the Democrats generically," so, given the volatility of the voting public, there's no reason "to think that this kind of extreme-right candidate is going to carry the country in the 2012 Presidential election".
Since the results of the first round of voting were announced, on April 29th, Sarkozy has pursued victory at the expense of his reputation, shamelessly courting the six and a half million voters who supported the extreme-right candidate Marine Le Pen, of the Front National.
In 2002, this system shocked the world by sending Jean-Marie Le Pen, an extreme right-wing candidate, to the runoff -- a travesty because the left-center candidate, Lionel Jospin, would have easily defeated Mr. Le Pen in head-to-head competition, but was eliminated in the first round (he finished third to Mr. Le Pen and the right-center incumbent, Jacques Chirac).
Does the film," Manchurian Candidate", come to mind (although the plot was foiled in the film, the idea was that the extreme right-wing candidate, would stand on the podium, strong).
California is not for extreme right-wing candidates".
