By Paul Michaud

One of the pillars of the French Jewish establishment, Jo Goldenberg, whose family runs the French capital's most celebrated Jewish restaurant, Chez Goldenberg, has revealed that his vote in last Sunday's first-round presidential elections did not go for either of the two favored moderate candidates, Jacques Chirac or Lionel Jospin, but for extreme right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen.

Goldenberg's decision to make public his vote for a man, National Front leader Le Pen, usually considered as anathema to French Jews, was understandably criticized by many community leaders, including one who said that "at his age Goldenberg should think of taking a long-deserved rest," but his position may very well be symptomatic of a trend that's become apparent in recent weeks in the French Jewish community.

For many French Jews, especially those who migrated to France from North Africa - Le Pen is a blessing in disguise as his xenophobic declarations of recent years have been aimed hardly at themselves, but almost exclusively towards young Arabs and Muslims whose parents hark from the Maghreb countries of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia.

They are considered by Le Pen and his electors as being largely responsible for the crime wave that has unfurled over France the past several months, and which has been the central issue of the presidential campaign, a theme which Le Pen has promised to develop over the next two weeks as he prepares for his final showdown with President Chirac on May 5.

Many French Jews hope that Le Pen, if ever he wins the presidency - something considered highly unlikely - could do as US President George W Bush and become a stalwart defender of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. In large part because of the support of the US religious right, 77 percent of Americans recently told pollsters for Gallup/USA Today/CNN that in their estimation the "real enemy" of the US was not Sharon but Yasser Arafat.

Le Pen, who is himself largely supported by the French religious right, could very well end up, if ever he were elected, however unlikely, to come out in favor of Sharon, a man against whom he has surprisingly emitted little in the way of criticism in recent weeks, unlike President Chirac who has repeatedly not only reaffirmed French support for Yasser Arafat, but also condemned Prime Minister Sharon's incursions into Palestine.

Le Pen has never attributed France's present social and economic problems to members of the Jewish community, and it is this realization that perhaps best explains the confused - indeed, subdued - reaction by French Jews to Le Pen's second-place finish last Sunday.

Most of the anti-Le Pen invective that followed Sunday's vote has come indeed from the French left, with marches against Le Pen that have taken place throughout France in the past two days containing no known Jewish organizations.

When spokesmen for the Jewish community have chosen to take a stand on Le Pen, it has usually been quite muted. For example, the remark made by Roger Cukierman, leader of Jewish defense organization CRIF, said simply that "for us the choice was clear." Like other community spokesmen, he did not come down strongly in any way against Le Pen.

Results from the Mediterranean coast, where Le Pen did best in Sunday's first-round elections, would show that his perceived denunciation of France's Muslim population as being responsible for the country's parlous state was largely heeded by all categories of voters in that part of France.

It is not for anything that Le Pen's National Front movement contains an important contingent of French Jews who have taken the form of a movement called "Jews for Le Pen". Most of them are dyed-in-the-wool conservatives who see no problem with Le Pen.

From Ummahnews (Arab News)