SURPRISE, NATIONALISM IS RACISM:

Le Pen's mask slips as he plays the race card against Sarkozy (John Lichfield, 10 April 2007, Independent)

Jean-Marie Le Pen, 78, is the "invisible man" of the French presidential campaign: invisible but ever-present, like a virus.

He began the campaign pretending to be a more mellow, and more tolerant, man. But in his latest broadcast appearance - he seldom appears in public - the veteran far-right leader reverted to his favourite theme: xenophobia.

The front-running, centre-right candidate, Nicolas Sarkozy, "comes from an immigrant background," Mr Le Pen told a radio interviewer on Sunday. By comparison, he, Mr Le Pen, was a candidate of the terroir: literally, a candidate rooted in the native earth.

"It's obvious, there's a difference," Mr Le Pen said. "There is a choice there which might be considered fundamental by a certain number of French people".

This is Jean-Marie Le Pen at his most poisonous and his most plausible - and also his most effective.

You have to enjoy the irony of using a hygiene trope to attack a Nazi.

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 9, 2007 7:15 PM