By Patrick J. Buchanan – April 23, 2002

“Non” screamed the single-word headline in Liberation. “The French political system, tottering for years, has imploded,” howled the editorial. Now, any election that can produce that kind of pain on the Trotskyite-Socialist Left cannot be all bad.

And the stunning showing of Jean-Marie Le Pen, who ran a close second to President Jacques Chirac in France’s elections with 17 percent of the vote, to 16 percent for Premier Lionel Jospin, is by no means all bad. Indeed, there is much that is healthy in this rightist uprising, beyond ending the political career of the ex-Trotskyite Jospin.