Marine Le Pen: Why I am Running for President of France

Marine Le Pen, the leader of the National Front, recently accumulated enough mayoral signatures to get her name on the ballot in the upcoming French presidential election. Below is her excellent speech in which she describes her reasons for running.

Many thanks to GalliaWatch for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:


A full transcript is below the jump.

00:32		My presence
00:36		in the presidential election is the result...
00:40		of a hard fight that we have won...
00:44		against all sectarian groups, against all pressures,
00:48		for democracy and for France.
00:52		Beginning today millions of citizens will feel hopeful again,
00:56		will be able to join the campaign, and will at last be represented...
01:00		in the election. I hope I am worthy of their confidence.
01:04		They should know that they can have confidence in me,
01:08		that I am conscious of the immense task,
01:12		of the unheard-of sacrifices that will be necessary to restore the country,
01:16		that I am ready, as they are, to fight for my country,
01:20		that I know that our fight is the fight of the...
01:24		children that we are vis-à-vis our parents and grandparents.
01:28		But it is also the fight of the parents that we are, and our responsibilities,
01:32		vis-à-vis our own children. They must not worry about the obstacles,
01:36		the disdain, the insults, the fatigue.
01:40		They should remind themselves, when things get tough,
01:44		of these famous words of Henri IV:
01:48		“The immense love I have for France makes everything easy.”
01:52		The moment has come to tell all French people...
01:56		the meaning of my candidacy.
02:00		Chairman of a political party, a woman, mother of three,
02:04		I fight. I fight against everything...
02:08		in the Republic that harms France today,
02:12		everything that weakens France today,
02:16		and I defend the vision of the France that I love.
02:20		I am a French citizen but I am also a mother.
02:24		Like all mothers I would like my family to live in security,
02:28		and for children to be able to return home at night...
02:32		without fear of muggings, beatings, or trafficking of all sorts.
02:36		Like all mothers I worry about my children...
02:40		and for all mothers I want to restore peace and order in our country.
02:44		But I see that this is not the case,
02:48		and that we are on the wrong track.
02:52		I find it shameful that both Left and Right,
02:57		in power for decades lie openly on this topic.
03:01		The number of criminal attacks has only gone up,
03:05		the number of immigrants implicated in these attacks has been going up constantly!
03:09		On this issue, lies are everywhere, they have become...
03:13		the last rampart of politicians to protect them from a reality that is often...
03:17		unbreathable for the inhabitants of big cities, but also for the countryside.
03:21		A trip to the ER...
03:29		of any French hospital would allow the blind and deaf who rule us to realize the truth for themselves
03:33		As a mother, I hope, as do all French mothers,
03:37		that my children have a successful life.
03:41		I ask the schools to transmit to them the knowledge accumulated...
03:45		by the brilliant generations that preceded us...
03:49		and the desire to be themselves, hence different from others.
03:53		I don’t want a leveling to the lowest common denominator,
03:57		I don’t want political correctness in our secondary schools...
04:01		to impose a dictatorship by the lowest achievers or the most violent.
04:05		I don’t want a school that abolishes grades because it refuses to look the truth in the face...
04:09		and balks at fighting the dramatic lowering of academic standards.
04:13		I don’t want a school system that passes only those with a certain level of wealth.
04:17		Is this the social justice that we want?
04:21		To hire 60,000 new teachers...
04:25		in order to improve education is an absurdity.
04:29		Do we really need 60,000 more teachers
04:33		depressed, disgusted,
04:37		incapable of commanding obedience
04:41		from the children? Our teachers suffer from ...
04:45		an ill that our society has tolerated for too long:
04:49		the refusal to use any authority on certain pupils.
04:53		No material or human investment can repair the damage done to a society that yields permanently to undisciplined individuals and violent minorities
04:57		They say I am fiercely anti-immigration.
05:01		It’s true. They dare to say I am xenophobic and racist
05:05		Nothing could be further from the truth of my life.
05:09		They say I am fiercely anti-immigration. It’s true.
05:13		They dare to say I am xenophobic and racist. Nothing could be further from the truth of my life
05:17		I simply say that I totally refuse...
05:21		immigrants who themselves refuse...
05:25		the authority of French law and French culture.
05:29		French civilization is a splendid alchemy of our art,
05:33		our laws, our literature, of our fundamental rights, dearly acquired,
05:37		of our beliefs, our values, our traditions, our habits,
05:41		our mores, our code, our life-style. And now we must turn the page.
05:49		I love France and her culture passionately
05:53		I believe that we have traversed centuries of tragic obscurantism,
05:57		of sometimes useless wars, of absolute power,
06:01		of bloody revolutions whose effects did not always help the poor,
06:05		of exploitation of men by men, to arrive at a highly civilized conception
06:09		of the rights of man and citizen.
06:13		I do not want this civilization to bend...
06:17		under the blows of financial interests or fanatical ideologies whose concepts take us back to the Inquisition
06:26		We cannot go on living in fear.
06:30		Along with other Frenchmen, I want a France that is part of the modern world,
06:34		proud of her civilization and unyielding...
06:38		to those who want to impose on her principles that are not hers.
06:42		Throughout our history, we have been able to move...
06:46		towards an improvement in human relations and this evolution...
06:50		is a progress for our civilization. Can we place this progress in jeopardy...
06:54		under pressure from religious minorities?
06:58		Everyone can practice his religion and respect his own customs -
07:02		Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist.
07:06		There is only one condition: that they respect the French Constitution.
07:14		I am European - on the condition that Europe not impose...
07:18		its laws and regulations on France. Today Brussels rules,
07:22		and with it the all-powerful world of finance rules to an ever-greater degree...
07:26		the world economy on which our labor force and our purchasing power depend.
07:30		Our politicians’ margin of maneuver...
07:34		in the management of the affairs of France has become so small...
07:38		that we wonder what the point is in electing them. They can no longer act.
07:46		They can only watch as the people sink into poverty,
07:50		precariousness and anxiety.
07:54		I find shameful the lie of politicians who claim they have the power to change...
07:58		the lot of the French, when in fact they are impotent.
08:02		Subjugated themselves, they want to subjugate everybody,
08:06		and they content themselves with removing individual rights on secondary issues such as smoking, highway radar, etc.
08:18		I am indignant that the famous maxim...
08:22		“promises engage only those who believe in them”
08:26		has become the credo of all our politicians.
08:30		In what kind of society do we live that we accept such cynicism?
08:34		I want honesty in politics. I prefer those who,
08:38		like myself, see things as they are and make few promises,
08:42		but who decide to fight inch by inch with the French people
08:46		in the name of our freedom and our prosperity against...
08:50		the dictatorships of Europe and minorities. I solemnly remind you that...
08:54		the model of society proposed by the globalist (“affairiste”)
08:58		Left is diametrically opposed to my convictions. Nor do I want a dictatorship of misfortune,
09:02		that comes to us from the Left.
09:06		I don’t want to see everybody transformed into welfare recipients
09:11		with the sole aim of taking power over their subsistence, their life, their dreams,
09:15		their soul and their conscience. I don’t want a system where nobody is enriched...
09:19		from his own efforts, and where only the banks profit.
09:23		They have already profited enough from the explosion of our debt...
09:27		and the interest we have been paying them for forty years.
09:35		This has gone on long enough.
09:47		Nor do I want this Trotskyist Left and the rosy tomorrows it promises,
09:51		which we know will be paid for with bitter tears like those shed in the Eastern Europe and
09:55		in Cambodia. I want a France where every difference can be expressed,
09:59		where earning one’s living is not a sin, where poor people are supported and helped, where all success, be it material or spiritual,
10:03		is encouraged.
10:11		I will do everything in my power to develop the possibility of creating values for France.
10:15		To do this I will oppose the law of the jungle, where disloyal competition...
10:19		has become insurmountable, where relocating, economic destruction,
10:23		poverty and massive unemployment have become an uncrossable limit.
10:27		I will give back to our entrepreneurs the freedom to fight on a level playing field.
10:31		But I am also a woman who fights against the mendacious Right, the Right that abandoned its values
10:43		I have had enough of lies, of election time cynicism.
10:47		I find it shameful to promise every five years the opposite of what you do the rest of the time.
10:51		I am one who believes that the end does not justify the means,
10:59		that the value of a man is measured less by the results obtained ...
11:03		than by the means used to reach that end,
11:07		that we cannot break with the rules of integrity, of honesty,
11:11		of loyalty, of courage just to attain power.
11:15		But besides that, attaining power has no meaning if you refuse to use it.
11:19		I say that France cannot waste five more years,
11:27		that the powerful have been ruling for too long...
11:31		and it is time for the French people to rise again, become demanding again with her leaders.
11:35		I am a Frenchwoman among Frenchmen
11:39		I have strong convictions that I will not impose
11:44		on anybody, but I uphold them because
11:48		I feel they are the convictions of the majority of Frenchmen.
11:52		I think that the French should, at last, have the courage to vote for themselves,
11:56		for their children, and not vote to give everything to others.
12:00		I say that the politicians have been disqualified from the affairs...
12:04		of State, the people must speak,
12:12		and once again be heard. I say that the spirit of France is not dead.
12:16		I affirm that France can return to the path of success and grandeur.
12:20		The people can return to feeling proud,
12:24		to having dignity and freedom. I call on the French to follow me on this path,
12:28		all Frenchmen, whatever distance they have traveled
12:32		whatever their origins, man or woman, young or old,
12:36		whether they are believers or non-believers, because the French deserve it, because France deserves it
12:40		Vive la République! Vive la France!