Marine Le Pen in Seine-Saint-Denis

As indicated in the previous post, Marine Le Pen visited Seine-Saint-Denis on Sunday, January 8. SSD, as most of you know, is the notorious department northeast of Paris where major rioting made headlines around the world in 2005. Seine-Saint-Denis contains one of the largest immigrant populations in France. According to demographer Michèle Tribalat numerous cities of the department contain less than 5% of young people (under 18) of European stock. (Wikipedia)

It was the riots of 2005 that made known throughout the world the word "racaille" (scum) when Nicolas Sarkozy famously promised one of the harassed residents there that he would rid the streets of the "racaille" using a power-hose.

Eight cities of Seine-Saint-Denis rank among the ten most violent cities of France.

The administration of the department has been in hands of Communists and/or Socialists for decades.

It was into this turbulent, hostile ambiance that Marine Le Pen ventured yesterday with members of her staff to meet her supporters and share a Christmas cake. The following is from Nations-Presse, a website of the Front National:

In 2007 Sarkozy placed a security expert at the head of the prefecture of Seine-Saint-Denis: the former head of RAID (an elite special force) and the CRS (riot police), Christian Lambert, nicknamed Panda because of his physiognomy. And we would see what we would see, said Elysée Palace and the Interior Ministry, with this new super-cop in charge… And we saw! Sunday, January 8, 2012, it was Christian Lambert who was sent to keep order at the public meeting of Marine Le Pen in Seine-Saint-Denis. The result: the "racaille" took over the streets and attacked everybody for part of the afternoon, in near impunity. There were several wounded, including a Front National member and a France 3 journalist.

There were several hundred of them, leftists of all stripes, anti-fascists for a day, activists and other professionals of street agitation, supported by hundreds of "racaille" who came from the lawless ghettos of Seine-Saint-Denis, to disrupt Marine Le Pen's public meeting (…) Leading the pack were several leftist elected officials, including Bally Bagayoko, adjunct to the Communist mayor of Saint-Denis in charge of Youth.

Early in the afternoon, completely overwhelmed, the inadequate police forces were not able to prevent vandals from going near parking lots close to the meeting hall. Left-wing hit men and ghetto thugs attacked passers-by, drivers, and FN members and sympathizers who had come from the four corners of France to applaud the presidential candidate. Some peaceful pedestrians were even spat upon and insulted, others turned and went back, taking a different route for safety. By mid-afternoon, there was at least one FN member from Yvelines injured in the eye following a head-butt from a thug. A female journalist was even struck on the head by a stone… From the camp of the "demonstrators", there were all sorts of projectiles hurled freely at the police, with no arrests at all.

Marine Le Pen had been scheduled to share the Christmas cake ("tirer les rois") with FN members and sympathizers at 3:30 p.m. The start of the meeting was somewhat delayed. By late afternoon, while the media announced that the "demonstration" had dispersed "calmly", several reliable witnesses informed the FN of confrontations between "racaille" and CRS who were now more numerous. After a long delay, no doubt under orders from the Interior Ministry (for we cannot imagine Christian Lambert that incompetent), several CRS units who had arrived late as reinforcements, finally got the upper hand over the rioters (…)

In its report of the demonstrations, Nouvel Observateur noted the following statement from Bally Bagayoko (mentioned above):

"The values of the FN are not those of this city, which are values of solidarity and mixture. The FN has no place here."

The video below shows Marine arriving for the luncheon, demonstrators carrying signs saying "No fascists here" and similar slogans. We also see former Defense Minister Hervé Morin, in a dapper gray coat, meeting with the demonstrators and expressing his opposition to Marine's message. Finally she cuts the cake and says her "priority is France."