Le Pen Could Win

Marine Le Pen might well be the next president of France. The French electoral system requires a majority of the vote, which almost invariably, given the multiple political parties in France, requires two elections. Le Pen seems certain to be among the two candidates who will be in the second election, and polls show that she is running neck and neck for the top position, virtually guaranteeing that she will be in the runoff to determine the winner of the presidential election.

The usual knock by the leftist elites is that Le Pen cannot win because she is on the "far right," a meaningless term, as anyone familiar with how the leftist elites in America treat those who stand up to them. What these snooty dolts really mean is that Le Pen upholds the historic values and culture of France. Although many Americans, even conservatives, have looked at France with disdain, that is a mistake. France was long a close and good ally of America. It was the French who gave us the Statue of Liberty. The French fought the Nazis, served as a loyal ally during the Cold War, and joined us in Desert Storm and in the war against global Islamic terrorism. France is not the enemy, but it could become one under radical Muslim domination. The French nuclear arsenal could destroy most of the major cities in America in a few hours. What we – and the rest of the Free World – need is someone who can restore France as a nation firmly within the bosom of Western civilization and as a nation in which Christianity, not Islam, holds the hearts of Frenchmen. This is precisely what we would expect from a Le Pen presidency. Can she win, though, when she has been demonized for so long? There are five reasons to believe she can. First, the French left after the presidency of François Hollande is in disarray. It is almost inconceivable that the French will not elect a president of the right, which also fits in with the French pattern of shifting with each presidential election from one ideological pole to another. If Le Pen can hold the right in France, she will have an excellent chance of winning. Second, the demonization of Le Pen is a very old story in French politics. She is a familiar face and a familiar candidate. French voters may claim to be appalled by Le Pen and so tell pollsters what they feel pollsters want to hear, but what Le Pen proposes is hardly radical or extreme at all. It is simply the reassertion of French values in France. Third, the intensity factor could help Le Pen. Her supporters are more emphatic and more certain about her than the other three candidates who have a chance to win this election. Intensity matters both in the first round and in the runoff. Fourth, while Brexit is uniquely British, it reflects a sentiment – a rather submerged sentiment – percolating throughout Europe. Hyper-centralization of European nations is a failure, and only the politicians and bureaucrats and media don't get it. National sovereignty is back, and perhaps back with a vengeance. Marine Le Pen is the strongest advocate for this in French politics, perhaps the strongest advocate since Charles de Gaulle. If the French yearn for someone like de Gaulle, there is no one but Le Pen to satisfy them. Fifth, every crime committed by young Muslim men against French girls, every terrorist act in France, every outrage against French values will stir up French voters. How? It is hard to see how French voters could be enthused to vote for a bland, hold-steady candidate, much less a leftist multi-cultural candidate. The bad things bad Muslims do in France will help Le Pen. The combination of a Le Pen victory in the French presidential election with the Brexit vote in Britain just might be the political catalyst needed to restore the national identities and traditional culture and values of those once great bastions of Western civilization and Christian ideals in Europe. We ought to hope this happens. America may be able to stand alone in the world, but we will be much better off in every way if other nations who once shared our values reclaim and defend those values once again.