Le Pen Is Mightier
Today on Tablet
December 12, 2011
How could a French Jew ever support the presidential candidate of the Front National? And how could they particularly support Marine Le Pen, who is the daughter of Jean-Marie, the notorious Holocaust negationist who founded the party and endowed it with much of its anti-Semitism? Actually, reports Robert Zaretsky today in Tablet Magazine, Le Pen fille has shrewdly cleansed the party of most anti-Semitic elements, making French Jews feel like supporting her isn’t an automatic non–non. On top of which, increased fears of (cough Muslim cough) immigrants and the precarious (cough German-dominated cough) Eurozone have otherwise made her the natural standard-bearer of a not-insigificant number of them.
Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.
