Inside France's Trumpian Nightmare: Can anything stop Marine Le Pen? Vanity Fair

In this early phase of the French presidential campaign, with the first round of voting scheduled for April 23 followed by an expected runoff on May 7, Marine Le Pen, the estranged daughter of France's National Front Party founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, seems to be another Teflon Don. Mountains of evidence exist that Le Pen's election is being financed by Russian banks— writes Vanity Fair, yet public opinion adores the candidate.

Perhaps polls don't tell the whole story. Going into Wednesday's Dutch elections, polls indicated reason for concern about the strength of anti-Islam firebrand Geert Wilders, founder and leader of the Party for Freedom, who promised to "de-Islamise"the Netherlands. Wilders was neck and neck with current Conservative PM Mark Rutte based on polls, but heavy turnout of 81% -- the strongest in 30 years -- in today's voting delivered a strong victory to the incumbent.

"This is a night for the Netherlands," Rutte told crowds of supporters after the exit polls were released. "After Brexit, after the US election, we said 'stop it, stop it' to the wrong kind of populism."

Returning to Le Pen's poll popularity and free pass on her Russian connections, perhaps the French -- like Americans -- can only handle one villain at a time. In the American election, it was Hillary Clinton who carried the public derision against her being a 'bad actor' in America's political system. The Donald was a threatening, incompetent beast to the majority of college-educated Americans. But huge crowds of uneducated and disenfranchised citizens, couldn't get enough of Trump. Vanity Fair continues:

It is a refusal to see or hear things that should properly have disqualified her long ago: the all-too cozy stance toward Vladimir Putin and Russian banks; the number of disreputable people closely associated with her; and her own employment scandal involving an allegedly fake European Union job for her bodyguard. One detects in all this a strange determination to ignore anything that contradicts the new hypothesis being bandied about by commentators, party leaders, and the public—the hypothesis of Le Pen drawing close to power, and possibly obtaining it.

On the subject of her relationship with Putin, Le Pen speaks frankly: " “I admire his cool head because there’s a Cold War being waged against him by the E.U. at the behest of the United States, which is defending its own interests. I admire that he’s managed to restore pride and contentment to a great nation that’s been humiliated and persecuted for 70 years.”

Fact-based journalism is as worthless in France, as in America in trying to inform voters. The French have a singular obsession around accusations of corruption against conservative candidate François Fillon—he, his wife, Penelope, and his children. The facts against Le Pen are equally damning, writes Jeff J. Mitchell. But nothing sticks to her.

If you want a phony jobs scam affecting not one but 24 legislators, you should take a look at the investigation launched by the European Anti-Fraud Office around 20 legislative assistants who were allegedly working for Le Pen’s party while on the payroll of the European Parliament. If you want actual indictments for alleged fraud, receipt of proceeds from fraud, misuse of corporate property, money-laundering, and illegal campaign-financing, you will find no better examples than those involving the far-right micro-faction known as Jeanne, together with Riwal, its communications contractor—both satellites of Le Pen’s National Front.

For the moment, Le Pen is running ahead of François Fillon, and leftist Benoit Hamon, and narrowly behind centrist Emmanuel Macron. There's a familiar refrain among French voters, one echoed by Trump's American supporters: "We've tried everything else; why not this?" Let's "stir things up" so that "something will finally happen."

Le Pen on '60 Minutes'

Anderson Cooper interviewed 'Le Pen' on March 5, 2017, with 10 million viewers tuning in for an introduction to the French politician blessed by Steve Bannon and Trump. The nationalist policies Marine Le Pen embraces are gaining supporters throughout France and all around the world. She’s hostile to free trade, rejects open borders and says the 'sauvage' globalization, promoted for decades by France’s political elites, is destroying her country.

The National Front leader says she's not waging a religious war but only one on Islamic fundamentalism. Le Pen also blames immigration from former French colonies into France as a major problem for the nation. Her agenda includes shutting down mosques that encourage fundamentalism, tightening borders, drastically reducing legal immigration, and expelling all illegal immigrants. Presently, 12 percent of French citizens are immigrants. Le Pen promises a referendum on France's EU membership and ditching the Euro.

White House senior strategist Steve Bannon argued, in a 2014 speech, that this right-wing international is a “global Tea Party movement” he strongly supports.

“The central thing that binds that all together is a center-right populist movement of really the middle class, the working men and women in the world who are just tired of being dictated to by what we call the ‘party of Davos,’” Bannon said. “I think you’re seeing a global reaction to centralized government.”

Axios writes that Marine Le Pen's strongest poll lead is among 18-24-year-olds with 33% in the first round of presidential voting. The same Axios article cited dramatically increasing support among 18-25-year-olds for Geert Wilders, who was soundly defeated Wednesday, March 15.

Bardot Not Burkinis

Marine Le Pen says France is Bardot, not burkinis. And she is determined to support and expand the ban on headscarves -- or any head covering -- worn in public places. The battle over burqas -- with more coverage than a hijab (or headscarf) -- promoted deep divisions among some members of France's Islamic community and in the whole country.

**Hanaa Ben Abdesslem, Hind Sahli** and **Shanina Shaik by Ellen von Unwerth for Harper's Bazaar Arabia March 2017.**

AOC smiled, posting yesterday a Harper's Bazaar Arabia editorial lensed by Ellen von Unwerth. These '50s-style Italian cinema images are very glam. The editorial comes as the European Union Court of Justice ruled on Tuesday that private businesses in Europe can forbid Muslim women employees from wearing headscarves if the policy is applied neutrally.

The conclusion by the highest court in the 28-nation European Union was in response to two cases brought by a Belgian and a French woman, both fired for refusing to remove their headscarves. It clarifies a long-standing question about whether some countries' bans on religious symbols, in classrooms, for example, can be extended to the workplace.

The court's response fed right into the French presidential campaign, bolstering the platforms of far-right leader Marine Le Pen, a leading contender in the spring election who wants to do away with all "ostentatious" religious symbols in the name of secularism, and conservative Francois Fillon, who hailed the court's decisions. France already bans headscarves and other religious symbols in classrooms as well as face-covering veils in streets, writes Hollywood Reporter. France implemented a public burqa ban in 2010.

"Today's disappointing rulings...give greater leeway to employers to discriminate against women — and men — on the grounds of religious belief," said a statement by Amnesty International. "At a time when identity and appearance has become a political battleground, people need more protection against prejudice, not less."

At present burqas and niqabs are banned in Switzerland, The Netherlands, Bulgaria, Belgium and France. Now hijabs or headscarves can be banned also. Germany is considering a burqa ban with the support of German chancellor Angela Merkel.

"The full veil is not appropriate here, it should be forbidden wherever that is legally possible. It does not belong to us," she said at the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) gathering.

Her comments were met with sustained applause by the audience.

Burkinis have fared better in the French courts. France's highest administrative court ruled in August 2016 that authorities in the French Riviera town of Villeneuve-Loubet do not have the right to ban the burqini. The end of summer ruling was expected to set a legal precedent for the entire group of 26 towns where the ban was in place.

Christopher Dickey, writing for The Daily Beast, weighed in on the August burquini pan saying that "in Marseilles, which has a very large Muslim population, the municipal beaches have always been a kind of summertime melting pot where it was common to see women of Muslim backgrounds wearing bikinis even if, in some cases, they changed back into gowns and veils before heading home. "

In recent years, Dickey continues, an ultra-conservative Salafist Islam has gained a foothold in certain districts of Marseilles, bringing demands for more and more burquinis. Scholar Gilles Kepel, author of a best-selling book on Islamist terror in France, explained that burquini bans weren't great "in terms of law." However, towns in the south of France were dealing with expediency.

Fear and anger are driving French voters to the right and the far right, beyond Sarkozy to Marine Le Pen of the National Front. “If we make the electorate feel that we are lenient on this, we will have Marine Le Pen [for president],” said Kepel, reflecting the views of many worried centrists.