Luxembourg (dpa) - Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn blamed incumbent French President Nicolas Sarkozy, as several of his European Union counterparts on Monday expressed concern for the success of far-right candidate Marine Le Pen in France‘s elections.

"If I were the President of the (French) Republic, I would ask myself why one out of five people in France are now voting for the National Front," Asselborn said before the start of an EU foreign ministers‘ meeting in Luxembourg.

"If you repeat everyday that we must change Schengen, that we have to have a tough immigration policy, that we have to talk about French exceptionalism, that is grist to the mill of the National Front," he added.

"The National Front is about no euro and no Europe, and no euro and no Europe is bad for France and for Europe, we need to stop this logic," Asselborn, a socialist, continued.

The French government fully expected a good result for Le Pen, Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo told reporters, mentioning that he had dinner on Thursday at the Foreign Ministry in Paris.

Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said he was "concerned" by attitudes not just "against an open society, but also an open Europe," and noted that they are present "not only on the far right, but also the far left."

The fact that Le Pen secured 18 per cent of the vote in the first round of the French presidential elections "has to give us food for thought," Austrian Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger said.

The second round between Sarkozy and the socialist candidate Francois Holland, who came out on top in Sunday‘s poll by a close margin, is now "wide open," Spindelegger said.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague declined to comment about the results.

"French elections are entirely a matter for the people of France, not for a British politician," he said. dpa alv amh hl Authors: Alvise Armellini, Alexandra Mayer-Hohdahl

en.europeonline-magazine.eu . . .


Fortunaly Hague is not as stupid as the others.

Vive Marine!

Many LePen votes surprisingly were cast by younger voters between the ages of 18 and 25. One would think that older persons would vote this way. Especially, since they're old enough to remember the disastrous Mitterand era.
Typical of the French electoral system, the second round will more than likely end up as a vote cast to keep the worst evil from gaining power. In other words, Sarkozy is likely to skim off LePen votes to keep Hollande out. However, depending on how many of those LePen voters younger were, their wildcards could push LePen just over the 51% hurdle, since younger people generally haven't learned how to be calculative regarding pooling votes reluctantly for candidates of lesser evil.
At any rate, one knows what's coming, when one votes in Sarkozy. Voting in the International Socialist will de-invent the term "illegal immigrant"/sans papiers, scare off millionaires and devide poverty to an even greater extent than Sarkozy plans to.
Aging Frogs are to expect this, after voting in Hollande:

www.dailymail.co.uk . . .

wrote:

...In the police investigation that followed, no other evidence of abuse from Aquino came to light. But I wouldn’t have known about him abusing my mother if I hadn’t put the camera in her room.
That night, the doctor at Ash Court did an extension examination of my mother, gently removing her clothing to map out the bruises or scratches or slap marks. I asked who had put my mother to bed earlier tonight.
‘Jonathan,’ the woman care worker said softly. I couldn’t believe it.
‘Was he by himself?’
‘Yes,’ she said, looking at the floor...

In 4 villages, Marie LePen would have won the candidacey:

www.badische-zeitung.de . . .

wrote:

...Hier erreichte Marine Le Pen mit 29,7 Prozent sogar auf den ersten Platz, vor Sarkozy (29,05 , Hollande (19,2, Bayrou (8,0) und Mélenchon (7,6). Im umliegenden Landkreis Neuf-Brisach setzt sich dieses starke Ergebnis der Rechtspopulisten in drei weiteren Gemeinden entlang des Rheins Richtung Süden fort: In Heiteren gaben 33,15 Prozent Le Pen ihre Stimme, in Nambsheim waren es sogar 35,3 Prozent.
In Vogelsheim kommt hingegen keine der drei stärksten Kräfte über 30 Prozent, hier liefern sich Le Pen (27, 6) und Sarkozy (27,2) ein Kopf-an-Kopf-Rennen vor Hollande (21,2)...

I hope all FNs will follow suit, by either staying home or submitting a blanc ballot