On January 5 -- two days before the fatal shootings of 12 people at the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris by a pair of jihadists claiming to represent al-Qaida in Yemen -- the February issue of Sapio went on sale.

In it was a one-page article titled "Imin seisaku wo oshi susumereba Nihon wa Furansu no ni no mai ni naru" (If it presses forward with its immigration policies, Japan will repeat the same mistakes as France).

Author of the article was Jean-Marie Le Pen, who from 1972 served as head of France's anti-immigration National Front party, France's third largest party after the Gaullists and the Socialists. He stepped down in January 2011 for his daughter Marie Le Pen to assume the party's reins.

"I have been told," Le Pen begins, "that voices are being raised in Japan that immigrants will be necessary as a source of labor because of the low birth rate and rapid aging of society. But rather than bringing in foreigners to work, the country should, from a long-term standpoint, instead consider policies aimed at increasing the birth rate. The immigration policies we pursued in France were overly simplistic."

After World War II, France adopted the policy of taking in immigrants to supplement its own labor force. But prior to 1974 no one gave consideration to how this would affect the stability of the country. Then from that year, under President Giscard d'Estaing, it became possible for foreign workers to bring in their families, and this led to the French government's bestowing citizenship on people who were not workers.

Forty years on, these immigrants have become ubiquitous. Foreigners entered the country at the rate of 300,000 a year. As opposed to an average of two children per family of native-born Frenchmen, it was not rare to see immigrants with five offspring.

Presently out of France's total population of 65 million, 15 to 20 million are Muslim immigrants or their descendants, Sapio says. (Editor's note: Based on checks of online sources, these figures appear to be considerably inflated.) And because France permits dual nationality, when elections are held in Algeria, for example, some 800,000 Algerians holding French citizenship can vote. Moreover, they also have the right to vote for the president of France.

To avoid this kind of situation, it is clear that restrictions must be placed on immigration.

"We (native French) are taking care of [the immigrants and their families] livelihoods, education and medical care. The unemployed from their ranks as well currently make up several million. From the standpoint of civilization, can this not be said to represent a serious problem?" Le Pen says.

Moreover, France doesn't know how to halt the phenomenon of Islamization.

He writes, "Ultimately, won't it come to the point that Muslim immigrants surrender to the terrorists who repeatedly carry out massacres, and cooperate with them? Why? Because the terrorists commit murder without any compunction, the immigrants will be faced with the choice of surrendering or being killed themselves. This is reaching the point where it is penetrating the fundamental safety of French society.

"Japan's current situation cannot yet be compared with France. Out of a population of 125 million, foreigners number only some 2 million. In this magazine's issue of May 28, 1992, I expressed my opposition to Japan inviting large numbers of immigrants. Once again I reiterate this advice.

"On August 15, 2010, I visited the Yasukuni Shrine. I have always placed nationalism in the forefront of my mind. History and nationalism do not penetrate all countries to the same degree. Beneath the 'nation' lie such attributes as a country's public safety, freedom, identity, culture and language -- attributes that we should always work to safeguard.

© Japan Today