Parti Populiste

Jean-Marie Le Pen is the leader of the Front National (the main French extreme right party). This is on the way to his May Day meeting.

Please note that I don't support the Front National's ideas , this is just reporting...

Part of "May Day (1er Mai)"

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Comments

bigoode is gone on Ipernity [deleted] says:

i think there is better reporting to do !!
I'm french and hate this guy
i don't understand why we can find these pics here !
maybe good pix, but the subject could be sincerely better !
Posted 43 months ago. ( permalink )

Hughes Léglise-Bataille says:

Yes and no. We're in a democracy, and free speech means everyone should be entitled to speak. It's not by hiding things that you can understand and fight them. Remember: "bring your friends close, and your enemies closer" !

But I did have a much better time shooting the improvised show of the Bérurier Noir from the top of a bus stop, singing "la jeunesse emmerde le Front National" !!!
Posted 43 months ago. ( permalink )

tofz4u says:

moi non plus, je n'aime pas le FN. Mais j'irai bien un jour à leur manif pour "shooter quelques bonnes gueules" ;)

La seule chose qui me retient, c'est qu'ils font ça le matin et qu'en ce jour de fête du travail, je fais la grasse matinée...
Posted 43 months ago. ( permalink )

Hughes Léglise-Bataille says:

C'est sûr que se lever pour Le Pen, ça a été dur ;-)
Posted 43 months ago. ( permalink )

nlckh says:

bigoode,

I don't know if you know the saying:

If a tree falls in a forest but no-one is there to hear it, does the tree still fall?

How about:

If Jean-Marie le Pen Speaks but no one is there to report on i, are his words still bad?

I would suggest they are worse, because the only people who are taking any notice are the idiots who follow him.

It is important that everybody sits up and takes note of what these people are doing and saying, so that we can fight it properly and in an informed and democratic manner.
Posted 43 months ago. ( permalink )

Orhan Tsolak says:

I would have preferred to see an anti-racist demonstrations picture here rather than the ugly face of Le Pen and his literature really. Especially on a May day!

As I did not check yet the news from France, I am sort of thinking now this was the only newsworthy May Day event in Paris, together with an impromptu punk concert. I hope that is not the case. I hope there was a bigger May day gathering in Paris.

I fail to see in what way an extreme right party can celebrate May Day? I am even more puzzled that the Le Pen rally is deemed newsworthy, if the point here is reporting the news.

Newsreporting I think is a different fish althougether.

Yesterday I took the May day march pictures in London and put them in my page here. I have done my best to put most of the pictures of people and groups participating, so people here in Flickr get an overall and balanced idea about the event, found the whole thing quite challenging.

But if the British National Party(the equivalent of Le Pen's party here in Britain) had organised an event, oh non! I would not go and take their picture. I would not give them the oxygen of publicity and the legitimacy they crave for.
Posted 43 months ago. ( permalink )

Hughes Léglise-Bataille says:

It's more complex than that, but I'll try my best.

First of all, the 1st of May is the traditional "Fête de Jeanne d'Arc", celebrated by the Front National as a symbol of patriotism and purity. They're not celebrating the Workers' Day, differently from all the other demonstrations taking place that day.

Second, after the unity of the unions and left-wing parties during the anti-CPE demonstrations, all has returned to "normal": ie., like most years, each union is marching separately (different places and/or different times). I couldn't be everywhere, so I chose to go to the major one.

Third, I was interested in the Le Pen meeting because I had never been to one, and it's quite an experience. Most people (like I have in the past) wouldn't go but the conversations you hear are very, very instructive. I'm not saying everybody should go (it would make the event looks bigger !), but really, it's worth getting that "first hand" experience. Le Pen's public meetings are also rare (and more generally, it's usually the left which is demonstrating, not the right, let alone the far right), so there are very few opportunities to get that experience.

Fourth, I don't think it's wrong to get Le Pen some exposure (publicity is different, as it involves "selling" his image). In fact, Le Pen is a very skillful politician, and he's usually as its most dangerous when he is quiet. He was suspiciously quiet during the violent protests against the CPE, and there was a good reason for that: it was helping him. He's currently quite high in the polls, and if people like Sarkozy or de Villiers are trying to seduce the far right, it's because they know that Le Pen's theories are (to a certain extent, of course) popular.

Fifth, a man who gets more than 10% of the votes and manages to be in the 2nd round of a presidential elections IS newsworthy. Minimizing his popularity or demonizing him is, I believe, a mistake for 2 reasons: first, you better take him seriously if you are to fight him, and second, you can't ignore the opinions of 10% to 15% of the voting population in a democracy, whether you like it or not. The Front National is a perfectly legal and authorized political party, so questioning its legitimacy is pointless.

As for the May Day (Workers' Day)demonstrations per se, I've taken less pictures simply because they were less interesting (nothing new in their claims, except maybe the emphasis put on immigration), and less "attractive" from a pure photographic/aesthetical point of view (I'm not a journalist giving absolute priority to the news, and photos of marching crowds with banners are quite boring).

However, the inmpromptu rock concert was interesting to me because: 1/ I had never shot a live music event, 2/ that was the main attraction at the end of the demonstration, and 3/ it was the opposite, in a way, of the morning meeting of Le Pen : one of the band's (Bérurier Noir) famous song, Porcherie, says: "la jeunesse emmerde le Front National " (something like "the youth fucks the Front National) and calls for the people to never let Le Pen again in the 2nd round of an election. So it wasn't just about music, and the band is famous for its shows with a cause.

Finally, I should also confess that I was secretly hoping that the Le Pen meeting would be disturbed by some protesters (it happened in the past), but they were none (haven't seen a single banner or protester...).

Hope this helps to understand the context better (and I'm always glad when a pic of mine triggers an interesting discussion, so thanks !).
Posted 43 months ago. ( permalink )

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Taken in Paris, Ile-de-France (map)
Taken with an Olympus E-500.
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Taken on May 1, 2006
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bigoode is gone on Ipernity [deleted] says:

Hughes Léglise-Bataille says:

tofz4u says:

Hughes Léglise-Bataille says:

nlckh says:

Orhan Tsolak says:

Hughes Léglise-Bataille says:

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