French presidential election is due in April. According to an Ifop poll results released on Tuesday Socialist candidate Francois Hollande leading with 29% followed by current French president Nicolas Sarkozy (23%) and Front National’s Marine Le Pen (18%). Both Francois Hollande and Sarkozy are reportedly Jewish. Francois Hollande replaced the disgraced former Jewish head of IMF Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
Francois Hollande dumped his former common-law (live-in together) wife, Marie-Segolene Royal (born 1953) not long ago. She, as Socialist candidate was defeated by Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007 presidential election. Both have four children from their relationship. Currently, Francois Hollande has a new girlfriend, Valérie Trieweiler, a political journalist.
The Front National (FN) is an anti-Muslim, anti-immigration White Supremacist party. It was founded by Jean-Marie Le Pen in 1972 and was leader of the party until 2011 when he passed-on the leadership to his daughter Marine Le Pen. Jean-Marie Le Pen is considered a Holocaust-denier by Jewish groups based on 1987 TV interview in which he questioned Holocaust by calling the gas chambers being a “detail” or a “minor point” of WW II.
Marine Le Pen has brought several changes to FN and even has leaned toward Islamophobia to attract Jewish votes. She recently sent her deputy Louis Aliot to Israel in order to drum up support among more than 70,000 French Jewish voters (dual citizen) living in Israel.
Though the daughter has distanced herself from her father’s remarks – the CRIF, the umbrella Jewish organization of France has not forgiven her. The Jewish leaders fear that Marine Le Pen might change her stand after winning the election and distance France from Israel.
Jews are less than 500,000 (on decrease since 1970 when they’re 530,000) among 65 million total French population. French Muslim religious community is the largest in Europe (over 7 million).
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