Rivals are Stealing My Ideas, Says Le Pen

By Martin Arnold
April 4th, 2007

Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front, on Wednesday broke with his low-profile strategy to claim his opponents’ efforts to steal his policies on immigration, jobs and security were merely boosting his bid for the French presidency.

Mr Le Pen, who finished second in the 2002 presidential election, told Le Monde that his main rivals – Nicolas Sarkozy and Ségolène Royal – would not gain votes by copying ideas he had preached for years because voters were fed up with the two main parties, the UMP and the Socialists.

“There is a tsunami of rejection of the system that means on the left and right people are saying: ‘This time, sick to the back teeth, I’ll vote Le Pen.’ My opponents who sense this change are trying to run behind me and they make me stronger,” he said.

Ms Royal shocked many in her Socialist party by calling on her supporters to sing the Marseillaise national anthem at her rallies and suggesting people keep a tricolour flag at home to display on Bastille day. (….Full Article Here)