Controversial politican making waves in France

PARIS -- Extreme-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, bombastic, fiery and theatrical, has been a fixture on the political scene for decades, playing on fears of immigration and vowing to keep France French.\nBrushing off charges of racism and anti-Semitism, the 73-year-old leader of the anti-immigration National Front party has wielded considerable influence over France's right wing.\nHe stunned the political establishment Sunday by making it into the May 5 runoff election for president, shoving aside Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, projections by three main polling firms showed.\nLe Pen will face off against incumbent President Jacques Chirac, in a battle of the far right and the more moderate right.\nLoud, sometimes almost thundering, Le Pen has put forth a "French first" message that excludes immigrants.\nIn his fourth presidential bid, Le Pen also effectively capitalized on his law-and-order message at a time when many French are feeling threatened by violent crime.\nWhile the left howled in distress, the former Foreign Legionnaire took Sunday's second-place finish in stride.\n"It's not a surprise to me," he said simply on French television shortly after the projections were announced.\nA former paratrooper who fought in Indochina and Algeria, the silver-haired Le Pen strikes a chord among voters who fear that the French identity, and the French themselves, are being displaced by waves of Muslim immigrants, many of them from Africa.\nLe Pen often compares immigration to an invasion and blames foreigners for rising unemployment and urban violence -- the top theme of the presidential campaign.\nHe claims he is saying aloud what others think privately.\nLe Pen's message clearly represents an undercurrent in French life even though he softened his approach this time, dropping his usual call for immigrants to be expelled.\nPhilippe Mechet, deputy director of the Sofres polling firm, said recently one in four French had voted for Le Pen or his party at some point in their lives.\nDespite that, political respectability has eluded Le Pen. Direct negotiations with him or his party can risk a scandal. During the campaign, President Chirac denied allegations that he met personally with Le Pen between rounds of the 1988 presidential vote, won by Socialist President Francois Mitterrand.\nChirac once said Le Pen is "dangerous for national unity, for civil peace."\nLe Pen, who lost an eye in a street fight, founded the National Front in 1972 but only began to make his mark in 1984 European elections when his party got 11 percent of the vote. Legislative elections in 1986 and the last two French presidential elections confirmed his hold, with Le Pen's party consistently getting about 15 percent of the vote.\nDespite past successes, Le Pen almost did not take part in Sunday's voting. He had to scramble to obtain the 500 endorsements from elected officials needed to become a candidate.\nLe Pen chose Joan of Arc, who for him is the ultimate symbol of patriotism, as his party's patron saint.\nWith a long history of court battles for remarks deemed racist, Le Pen has been convicted several times for remarks about Jews or the Holocaust.\nHe is notorious for having called Nazi gas chambers "a detail of World War II history" in 1987 -- a remark for which he was fined in court. He denies he is anti-Semitic.\nLe Pen was banned from holding public office in France for a year after shoving a Socialist politician during France's 1997 campaign for legislative elections.