The French elections just pushed forward a center-left (by French standards) and right (by French standards) candidates to the final elections.

Heather Hulbert, writing at democracyarsenal.com says:

And the far-right Jean-Marie le Pen falls to 10%, far below the second-place showing that so embarrassed France last time. So much for the SPECTER OF ANTI-IMMIGRANT SENTIMENT LEADING TO RIGHT-WING TAKEOVER.

Um, Heather - do you know was racaille means? Or the implication of nettoyer la cité au Kärcher??

Sarko is popular in no small part because he's mainstreamed Le Pen's positions, and wrapped them in a palatable personal history.

Hulbert's source - a immigrant to France - even makes this point, but somehow it got missed:

Maybe the biggest story is the (relative - sadly not total) collapse of the Front National, which slid back down to 11.1%, about what it used to score in parliamentary elections in the 1980s and early 90s. Probably partly a reflection of the tendency to flee the fringes, but also maybe due to Nicolas Sarkozy taking over much of the security and immigration discourse of the party and making it his own.

When people ask me why I don't have more respect for my betters - for the people who make their livings as policy analysts in areas where I'm a rank amateur - it's because I keep reading nonsense like this.

I'm not afraid of an Islamic takeover of Europe. I'm much more afraid of a resurgence of European racism and violent nationalism. they're much much better at that than we are. And I'm even more afraid of our clueless foreign policy apparachniks and their patent inability to see or think clearly.