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Streets clogged in lepen protests Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
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Thursday May 2, 2:21 AM
Crush in Paris as 1.3 million around France protest against Le Pen
More than one million people took to streets across France, clogging half of Paris in a crush of humanity and delivering the biggest protest yet against far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen and his presidential bid.
The demonstrations dwarfed Le Pen's own traditional May Day march through the capital, which this year he turned into a campaign rally for the weekend run-off election against incumbent centre-right President Jacques Chirac.
The show of public outrage was the climax of daily rallies that erupted since the National Front (FN) leader scored his stunning first round triumph on April 21.
The monster parade through eastern Paris was by far the biggest, gathering 400,000 people in a carnival atmosphere and overwhelming efforts of police who had forecast maybe half that number.
The protest -- the capital's biggest demonstration since a march for private education in 1984 -- stretched back blocks from its route and gorged boulevards linking the Place de la Republique and the Place de la Nation.
Paramedics had to treat around 40 people overcome by the pressure of the crowd, and hospitalised 18 of them. Police arrested 15 people arriving to take part at train stations and elsewhere as a "preventive" measure against potential trouble-makers.
The rally itself was bogged down by the sheer numbers of people, and, three hours after it started, some people left the nearly stationary procession for home.
Government figures put the overall number on the streets across France at 1.3 million, as protesters sought to expunge what they see as the shame of the April 21 vote, and urge a massive turn-out in Sunday's second round to deal Le Pen a crushing defeat.
To the sound of innumerable musical beats, the holiday demonstrations brought together good-humoured crowds of young and old, many covered in stickers or bearing banners casting Le Pen as a dangerous and fanatical fascist. "Spit on the FN's flame to put it out," one read.
The 73-year-old former paratrooper shocked the country when he qualified for the run-off against Chirac, forcing the main left-wing contender, Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, into third place and out of the race.
Decried as a troubling portent of resurgent ultra-nationalism, Le Pen's breakthrough prompted a nationwide outpouring of rage by the left, and hundreds of thousands of mainly young people have staged daily protests to condemn his anti-immigration and anti-EU policies.
Le Pen's own chance to show his strength on the street was a disappointment however, as only between 10,000 and 20,000 flag-waving supporters turned out for a morning march in Paris in celebration of the country's mediaeval heroine Joan of Arc. The FN had predicted 100,000.
Hundreds of black-clad riot police lined the route of his rally past the Louvre museum to the Place de l'Opera, where -- flanked by wis wife Jany -- Le Pen delivered an impassioned address to the crowd.
"We have four days to win the battle for France," he said. "Lift your hearts. We can win Sunday because we have faith and love of the homeland on our side."
He launched a bitter attack against Chirac. "The outgoing president is the godfather of the clans who've been bleeding the country for two decades and living the highlife with French people's money," he said.
Fearful of trouble in Paris, police had mobilised 3,500 officers but the demonstrations were without incident, and what was seen as the key danger moment passed peacefully, when hundreds gathered not far from the route of the FN march to commemorate an Arab man murdered by skinheads in 1995.
Around the country, protest marches against Le Pen took place in dozens of towns and cities.
Police reported 50,000 demonstrators in Grenoble and Lyon, 40,000 in Bordeaux and Toulouse, 30,000 in Marseille, and 20,000 in Montpellier, Rennes, Nantes and Caen, with slightly smaller numbers in Tours, Orleans, Strasbourg, Brest, Angouleme and Lille.
In the ethnically mixed Mediterranean port of Marseille, where nearly 30 percent chose the far-right on April 21 -- including four percent for Le Pen's former deputy Bruno Megret -- left-wing protesters said they would vote Chirac on Sunday, but with a heavy heart.
"For me, Le Pen's policies is like a return to year zero," said Cecile Boudard, a drama student walking on a pair of stilts.
"Le Pen's success has really shocked me. This is a city where everybody mixes well, but to find out that nearly 25 percent of the people here voted Le Pen really makes you think," she said.
With the support of the left, Chirac is almost certain to take Sunday's election, winning himself a new five-year term. But left-wing parties are hoping to take revenge with a backlash at parliamentary elections in June.
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