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Springtime For Le Pen
Far-right French leader Jean-Marie Le Pen could be poised for success in March's regional elections.
Some pundits predict that his National Front party (FN) could cause even greater shockwaves than Le Pen's success in the 2002 presidential elections, when he came second only to Jacques Chirac.
Could Chirac respond by stepping up his attacks on America?
Le Pen and his daughter (and heir apparent) Marine have launched a double-pronged attack on two of France's most important regions.
Le Pen could take the Provence-Cote d'Azur-Alps region, one of France's richest and most powerful councils. The National Front has scored notable successes in this region in the past. Marine has set her sights on the Paris-dominated Ile-de-France area. It is unlikely that Mme Le Pen will win IDF, but she could hold the balance of power.
All of this is bad news for France's president Chirac. Chirac's party, which governs from the centre-right, will be pressed from the right by the FN.
Chirac has in the past attempted to steal some of Le Pen's clothes on issues such as illegal immigration. While Mayor of Paris he grumbled about the bizarre smells emanating from immigrant kitchens, though it is unclear how M Chirac, who has always preferred Paris' more salubrious quartiers to the west of the city, ever got to smell African, Indian or Arab cooking, which takes place mostly in the east and north.
Furthermore, a renowned bon viveur like Chirac, who can happily munch his way through thousands of Euros worth of food every week, would more likely be lured to the source of unusual aromas, not repulsed.
His anti-immigrant stance has always rang hollow. For all his faults, Chirac does not make a natural fascist.
Since the shock of the presidential election, Chirac attempted to counter far-right concerns by employing the hyperactive Nicolas Sarkozy as interior minister.
Sarkozy's campaign against dangerous drivers, illegal immigration and rising youth crime has been quite successful: Too successful, M Chirac might think.
Chirac isn't fond of his interior minister, who has made his ambition to hold Chirac's job one day very clear. Dealing with France's spiralling crime was one way to spike Sarkozy's career. Instead, Chirac has found his can-do young rival topping polls as France's most popular politician.
Sarkozy could be an asset in March's elections. Chirac, however, will be wary of allowing the interior minister yet another opportunity to increase his popularity. Le Pen, too, has suggested that Sarkozy's sympathy for (legal) Muslim immigrants has sent voters flocking to the FN.
Unlike his rivals in the Socialist Party (PS), Chirac does not have the option of making a deal with extremists. Chirac and Le Pen despise one another in any case.
Chirac, then, might move towards the centre-left to win votes.
The PS remains in disarray following former leader Lionel Jospin's humiliation at the hands of Le Pen. Some in the party hope to lead from the centre - others look to wooing the extremists of the far left as a way of bolstering the PS vote. PS figures regularly attend anti-globalisation get-togethers such as the recent European Social Forum, and they rarely shy from photo-opportunities with 'peasant' leader José Bové.
Unfortunately for them, the extreme-left rarely reciprocates PS advances. An alliance between some of France's extremists could take more than ten percent of the vote in March, mainly from socialists. Some Trotskyite and Revolutionary Communist leaders have made clear that they see establishment socialists as part of the problem.
This division on the left could explain president Chirac's renewed calls for a 'multipolar world', which he dug up again in his New Year's message to France. The strength of Chirac's determination in opposing the war in Iraq took many socialists by surprise. It also won admirers among those who would usually be PS voters.
Pushed hard from Le Pen's far right, Chirac has no choice but to pull votes from the centre-left. Standing up the the Evil US Empire has always played well with French left-wingers, for whom anti-Americanism is an article of faith.
Expect the president's attacks on the US to increase over coming months.
