Marine Le Pen falls flat in Quebec

QUEBECERS WERE taken by surprise on March 18 when Marine Le Pen, the leader of France's far-right National Front, stopped in the city for an uninvited visit.

Unfazed by the cold shoulder shown to her by every political party in Quebec, Le Pen used the cover of "Francophone Week" (Semaine de la francophonie) to pontificate to the Quebecois on their failure to uphold the French language--and spew her message of hate at a press conference in Quebec City's Marriott hotel.

She was greeted by a small group of protesters and four young members of the Parti Quebecois (PQ), who came in defiance of their own party leadership. The protesters' signs were plainspoken, reading: "Quebec says fuck you to the National Front" (Québec emmerde le Front National) and "No fascists in our cities" (Pas de fachos dans nos villes).

Le Pen's political isolation didn't stop her from offering unsolicited diagnoses of Canada's and Quebec's ails, in particular, describing as "folly" and "gross error" the Trudeau administration's decision to invite 25,000 Syrian refugees to live in Canada and eventually acquire citizenship. "It's 25,000 today. And how many tomorrow? And at what price?" she asked.

But when reminded about the record numbers of French immigrants coming to Quebec, Le Pen responded, "What a relief," an open admission that her opposition to immigration is based on pure racism.

Le Pen also criticized her Quebecois hosts for failing to educate French students at a price that she deems reasonable, a reference to recent provincial legislation that will charge French students at Quebec universities out-of-province tuition, which is triple that paid by Quebecois residents.

Despite her spurning by the PQ, Le Pen expressed starry-eyed longing for a political marriage with billionaire media baron and PQ leader Karl Philippe Peladeau, whom she described as "charismatic" and as someone "who does great work."

Le Pen is not the only right-wing French politician to serenade the Quebec independence movement: In 1967, French Prime Minister Charles de Gaulle caused a diplomatic row with Canada when he told a Quebecois audience, "Vivre le Québec libre!" ("Long live free Quebec"), just as the movie The Battle of Algiers by Gillo Pontecorvo revealed to the world the bloody depravity of the French occupation of Algeria, of which De Gaulle was a primary architect.

But Le Pen goes even further and claims that France needs independence as much as Quebec: "The battle of France against the European Union is similar to the battle of Quebec against Ottawa." Le Pen thereby conveniently ignores that Quebec was forcibly annexed to Canada by military conquest in 1759, while France elected to become a member of the European Union.

"The idyll between the French far right and the [Quebec] movement for independence appears headed straight towards a speedy divorce," commented the daily Montréal Métro.