By CHRISTINE OLLIVIER
The Associated Press
Sunday, February 25, 2007; 2:27 PM
LILLE, France -- France's crusader of the far right, who rallied flag-waving followers at a National Front party congress Sunday, is making his sixth long-shot bid for France's presidency.
The only question is, will voters this time be won over by Jean-Marie Le Pen's aggressively nationalist, anti-immigrant message?
Le Pen shocked France _ and much of Europe _ five years ago when he came in second behind President Jacques Chirac in the first round of voting in the presidential race. Le Pen lost decisively in the runoff, but his opponents seem concerned that he could pull off another upset in the polls.
Thousands of supporters gathered at the party congress here over the weekend to cheer Le Pen's pledges to halt immigration, bolster the military, pull France out of NATO, restore the death penalty and slash taxes.
But Le Pen is struggling to win the backing of 500 French elected officials, which he needs to earn a place on the ballot. Polls, meanwhile, show the 78-year-old politician in fourth place in the run-up to the first round of voting April 22.
He trails Nicolas Sarkozy of the ruling conservative party; Segolene Royal, a Socialist; and rising centrist Francois Bayrou.
Little of that seemed to matter to 2,000 supporters here Sunday, who greeted their champion by chanting and waving the tricolor flag.
"France for the French," Le Pen declared in a combative speech that closed the weekend congress. He praised France's "humble workers," lamented the loss of French military and industrial might, and lashed out at multinationals "where power rests with a few thousand analysts, traders and managers who have only one fatherland: money."
This "predatory capitalism," he said, encourages immigration, which he said is "the essential cause of general impoverishment."
Earlier, Le Pen said there is an organized effort by his opponents to dissuade mayors from backing him. But he struggles at each election to gather the necessary signatures to appear on the ballot.
Political observers say many mayors _ and voters _ support him in private but are reluctant to do so publicly.
As for his dismal showing in the polls, Le Pen likes to point out that pollsters failed to predict his startling success in 2002.
Convicted several times of anti-Semitism and regularly accused of xenophobia and racism, the gifted orator says he reflects the yearnings of France's silent majority.
Candidates on left and right, though, are working to avoid a repeat of 2002.
The Socialists are keen to smooth over the divisions that fractured the left-leaning voters at the time. Sarkozy, now the interior minister, has tightened immigration rules in what some see as a bid to siphon far-right votes from Le Pen.
Before Le Pen's speech, his daughter Marine, a major force in his campaign, laid out the party's campaign platform. In a restrained speech free of her father's emotional rhetoric, she called for an end to immigration.
She also pledged "efficient, applicable solutions" to the problems of French voters, including $47 billion in tax cuts.
Supporters dressed in Napoleonic army uniforms took the stage, as a speaker recalled the days of French glory. The crowd cheered a message of support sent by Alessandra Mussolini, granddaughter of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and a far right politician in Italy.
When party members gathered in Lille's congress hall on Saturday, some 1,000 of their opponents marched through this northern French city denouncing Le Pen's policies as racist and destructive.
A wily strategist, Le Pen has been a fixture in French politics for decades. He lost an eye in a street fight in his youth, and later became a paratrooper and Foreign Legionnaire who fought in Indochina and Algeria.
Even if his presidential bid fizzles, Le Pen remains a force to be reckoned with in France _ and beyond. He is a key player in a new far-right faction in the European Parliament that is pushing to limit immigration and resist the EU's drive for closer integration.