Le Pen secures surprise support from Muslims

[Nicholas]

A small but significant minority of French Muslims intend to vote for Jean-Marie Le Pen, the far-Right National Front leader in this month's presidential elections - a remarkable achievement for the politician known for his anti-immigrant stance.

Some of the country's five million Muslims are not keen for a new wave of immigrants to arrive. They also support Le Pen's anti-American rhetoric and his publicised "friendship" with the people of Iraq. Others are attracted by his traditional stand on moral issues such as abortion, family or restoring the death penalty.

Abdallah Bourakba, 54, is a divorced father of three whose parents came to Paris in the 1950s from Algeria. He is unemployed and looking for a job as a salesman. He will vote for Le Pen on April 22. "When my father came here, he knew he had to work damned hard. New immigrants think France is an El Dorado. They are parasites, want everything on a plate and are costing us a billion euros a year," he said.

Murad Asfoure is a 25-year-old history student with Moroccan parents. Married with a baby daughter and living in Dijon, the Burgundy capital, he works at an international courier company. He plans to join the National Front.

"Le Pen has a moral conception of politics. He wants to restore the importance of the family. He wants to bang the table and say no to the licentiousness. France is in a dire state. Look at the porn on television; look at the drugs," he said...........

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.../02/wfra02.xml