Taking full advantage of her rise in the French presidential opinion polls (recent opinion polls give her 23-24% of the vote in the first round of the 2012 presidential election, outpolling Sarkozy and DSK among others), Ms. Marine Le Pen, the head of France’s Front National, announced that she will travel to Rome next week and, if possible, she will also visit Lampedusa for the purpose of denouncing what she characterises as a lack of EU migratory controls. (“Lors de son déplacement [en Italie], elle entend dénoncer «l’incapacité de l’Union européenne à juguler le déferlement migratoire qui frappe l’île de Lampedusa» après la révolution tunisienne. La candidate FN à l’Élysée envisage également de se rendre ultérieurement sur l’île de Lampedusa. «Si je peux me rendre à Lampedusa, j’irai, bien sûr», a-t-elle assuré.”)
Le Pen has referred to the Tunisians who have reached Italy in recent weeks as “the vanguard of a new massive wave of immigration.” (“d’«éclaireurs d’une nouvelle vague migratoire gigantesque».”) Her official web site contains an updated press release on the situation in Lampedusa: “Lampedusa : pendant que les clandestins sont accueillis, le maire est poursuivi !”
Click here (FR) for article.
Click here (FR) for link to Le Pen’s web site.
MIGRANTS AT SEA 