April 23, 2002	Tuesday	Safar 9, 1423

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PARIS, April 22: Politicians and commentators formed an international queue on Monday to condemn the election success of xenophobic French leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, producing a rare consensus among all points on the political spectrum except the far right.

The strong showing in France’s presidential poll by a man who once dismissed the Holocaust as a “detail” of history shocked Europe’s left and drew expressions of worry from most rightwingers, Jewish groups and North Africans, who constitute a major portion of France’s immigrant population, a favourite whipping boy for Le Pen.

Israel’s most powerful religious party urged French Jews to emigrate to Israel to “escape anti-Semitism” in France.

Michel Friedman, vice president of Germany’s Central Council of Jews, said he was concerned about developments in France and elsewhere in Europe.

“What’s going on with Europe that, after Austria and Italy, French voters too give so many votes to a right-wing racist?” he asked in an interview with the Cologne Express.

France’s former colonies in North Africa reacted with shock, fearing the rise of Le Pen boded ill for the millions of Arab immigrants in France.

The ruling party newspaper in Ivory Coast, another former French colony which produces many migrants to France, said the vote was ominous.

“It is the racist, xenophobic France which is prevailing and that is frightening,” said Notre Voie.

European leaders, too, reacted with alarm, urging the French to vote for incumbent Jacques Chirac.

“It’s most regrettable that the far right has become so strong,” German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said, adding that democrats in France and throughout Europe should strive to ensure Le Pen did not gain any degree of power.—Reuters