Word: penned
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...left and ecologist candidates on the assumption that they would have a second-round opportunity to ensure that Socialist Lionel Jospin beat out incumbent President Jacques Chirac, to cost the Socialists a place in the second round: Instead, Chirac faced the far-right National Front's Jean-Marie Le Pen in the run-off, putting many voters for whom Jospin had not been sufficiently left-wing into the incongruous position of having to vote for the center-right Chirac in order to keep out Le Pen...
...lieutenants to begin sketching plans for government as if their victory were assumed. But Sarkozy, too, faces a balancing act. Maintaining his two- to four-point lead over Royal depends on him continuing to attract at least some of the almost 17% of French voters who backed Le Pen in 2002. It is to secure their votes that Sarkozy has made calls for a clampdown on immigration and emphasis on France's national identity and Christian roots a centerpiece of his campaign...
...12th century monastery ruins. Its more recent political history, however, has given this Languedoc town a kind of ill fame across France. In 1989, Saint-Gilles became the first town to elect a mayor from the extreme-right National Front party. The National Front leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen, a perennial loser in presidential elections, has consistently placed first in Saint-Gilles. In short, the town has voted for the kind of xenophobic zealotry that for many years was disavowed by polite French society. But the first round of presidential voting, on April 22, may finally find Saint-Gilles...
...illegal aliens. But even some of his allies have questioned his campaign pledge to create a "Ministry for Immigration and National Identity"--a linkage many decry as a Le Penesque invocation of a creeping foreign menace to France. However controversial, the moves have helped "Sarko" win over some Le Pen loyalists. "The true racists will never abandon Le Pen," says Nicolas Rullier, 29, summarizing what he hears at his newsstand beside the sun-washed medieval Benedictine abbey. "But I think lots of regular people here who voted for Le Pen in the past to voice their fears and anger...
...suggesting in March that all French citizens should learn La Marseillaise). To some in Saint-Gilles, Sarkozy's allure is in his electability. "I'm voting for Sarkozy not only because I think he truly believes these policies are necessary," confides a retired Saint-Gilles farmer and past Le Pen voter who identifies himself only as André, "but also because Sarkozy has a far better chance of winning and applying them than Le Pen ever will." If that prediction is correct, this town so reviled for its politics in the past may turn out to have been simply ahead...