April 29, 2002	Monday	Safar 15, 1423

PARIS, April 28: Martial Bilt, who is Jean-Marie Le Pen’s principal campaign strategist, says that he expects at least 100,000 marchers to take part in the May 1st march being organized in Paris by the National Front.

It will be the principal media event organized by Le Pen in the few days that remain until the second round of French presidential elections on May 5, in which he confronts incumbent Jacques Chirac.

A second major meeting will take place the following day in Marseilles, which is France’s second largest city.

Bilt says that Le Pen would like to hold a meeting in France’s third largest city, Lyons, but that “we’re unable to find anybody to rent us a meeting hall, a situation which Chirac certainly doesn’t have to face.”

He says, though, that the situation has become a blessing in disguise, for it’s decided the National Front to re-focus its attention on media events and participation by Le Pen in whatever television and radio events are available, and these are being scheduled on at least a twice-a-day basis between now and May 5, assures Bilt.

“Such events,” he notes, “are certainly much more cost-effective, given our limited resources. You do have to realize,” he emphasizes, “that our financial means are limited, and that our resources are several times less than those that Chirac has at his disposal.”

As for one of Le Pen’s principal campaign slogans - “I’m socially of the left, economically of the right, and nationally for France,” Bilt denied that it was inspired by Adolf Hitler, who according to recent press reports allegedly used similar words during the 1933 campaign in which he was democratically elected chancellor of Germany.

“No,” says Bilt, “Le Pen’s words were inspired by a campaign slogan used by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg in his recent campaign for Mayor of New York. I found it in an issue of Air France’s passenger magazine,” he added.

Martial Bilt says that the National Front would like to attain at least a 30 per cent score during the May 5 vote. “under that figure, our campaign will not have been a success.”

In any case, he expects Le Pen “to do much better” than the 20 per cent of the vote that French pollsters had forecast for Le Pen.

Le Pen says he for one hopes to do even better than 30 per cent, and that such a score will come in handy to the planning of the legislative campaign that the National Front is already preparing for parliamentary elections to be held on June 9 and 16.

As for the country’s leading polling organizations, none of which was able to forecast accurately the April 21st first round vote, French pollsters have apparently been condemned to silence, although it happens that for the first time in French history they would have been allowed to publish polls between the two voting rounds.