After Jean-Marie Le Pen's surprise showing in the French presidential election, Nick Morrison looks a the rise of the extreme right in Europe - and a politician with a dubious past

AN EARTHQUAKE, a thunderbolt, a cataclysm - the result of the first ballot of the French presidential election had political pundits groping in their lexicons of natural disasters to capture their sense of shock. And by beating the prime minister and Socialist candidate Lionel Jospin, National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen has indeed sent tremors throughout European politics.

While Le Pen, who was contesting his fourth presidential election, has consistently done well in previous polls, never before has he looked like making the final run-off. But in two weeks time, voters will be left with the choice between a man widely seen as a bully and a bigot, and the incumbent Jacques Chirac.

Few expect Le Pen to come close, as parties from the remainder of the political spectrum unite behind a president previously seen as discredited, ineffectual and tainted by corruption scandals. But for Le Pen, simply staying in the contest has given him an undreamed-of respectability.

And while his success is rooted within the peculiarities of French politics, mired in the legacy of the Revolution more than 200 years on, it has also come at a time of resurgence for the extreme right across Europe. In Austria, Italy, Holland, Norway, Denmark, even Switzerland, the far right has been capitalising on anxieties over immigration to make electoral advances. And nor has Britain been unsullied by this trend, with racial tension leaving its mark on the ballot box in Oldham in last year's general election.

In France, the presence of the far right has been an almost constant, if sometimes subdued, factor since the Bourbons were prised from power in 1789, according to Tom Taylor, political scientist at Teesside University.

"Ever since modern France was established, there has been on the right a group of people who are unassimilated in the body politic, who have never accepted the consequences of the Revolution," he says. "In Le Pen's speech on Sunday he evoked the spirit of Joan of Arc.

'This is Catholic fundamentalism, mixed with anti-Semitism, mixed with feelings against things that are seen as un-French. It is not unusual for the ultra right in France to get nearly ten per cent of the vote. What is unusual is Le Pen has taken it a bit further, and this is to do with hostility towards the large numbers of immigrants from North Africa, combined with the same problems we have with asylum seekers."

The fragmentation of political parties, with three Trotskyist candidates splitting the left-wing vote, and a low turnout also undoubtedly propelled Le Pen into second place in the vote. Although Le Pen's chances in the run-off have widely been discounted, a more accurate test of the strength of the extreme right may come in the resulting parliamentary elections, where the National Front has traditionally done less well.

"This is probably a flash in the pan," says Mr Taylor. "There will be an extreme right in France for the foreseeable future, it tends to go quiet and then flare up again."

But it is possible to see Le Pen's victory as part of a larger trend towards the far right, which has seen some surprises across Europe. In Italy, the National Alliance, which claims descent from Mussolini and numbers a granddaughter of Il Duce among its representatives, is a partner in the ruling coalition. In Austria, Jorg Haider's Freedom Party garnered a quarter of the vote in 1999 elections.

While Italy and Austria do have some tradition of embracing fascism, even countries not normally seen as hotbeds of radicalism have been caught up.

The anti-immigrant People's Party has propped up Denmark's government since last November's election, and in Norway the Progress Party does the same for its administration. The Vlaams Blok was the largest party in Antwerp after the Belgian elections of 1999, and Christian Blocher of the Swiss People's Party came out top with 22 per cent of the vote in last October's elections.

And the next to join this unsavoury club may well be Holland, where Pim Fortuyn is on course to get up to 20 per cent of the vote next month, on a platform of halting the arrival of immigrants from Muslim countries. While the first-past-the-post system may have limited the prospects for the British National Party in Britain, they still managed to gain 16 per cent of the vote in one Oldham seat last year, and 11 per cent in the other, by capitalising on tension following nights of rioting.

What all these parties have in common, according to Dr Ella Ritchie, director of Newcastle University's Jean Monnet European Centre, is their ability to capitalise on a deep-seated, if sometimes unidentifiable, concern across Europe.

"Le Pen uses this notion of insecurity and that strikes a chord with people's worries, although they don't quite know what they're worried about," she says. "It is living in a multi-cultural society and with all the changes in the European Union - for some people it provokes a feeling that they're not sure what society is like anymore. Therefore, politicians or parties who can somehow capture that mood tend to do quite well, and Le Pen has also moved on to law and order as an issue, which also strikes a chord."

But while Le Pen's victory may stir many normally apathetic voters into taking part in next month's run-off, ensuring his triumph is short-lived, this does not lessen the impact of Sunday's result.

'In the 1980s, Le Pen made voting for the National Front a respectable thing to do - he legitimised it as other parties took him seriously," says Dr Ritchie. "This might be another stage in that process, as here he is in the second ballot, even if it is by some fluke. And to some extent what is happening elsewhere is worrying. Although Berlusconi's government in Italy is not extreme right, there are people like Le Pen's group in the coalition. There are underlying trends and politicians are playing on the worries people have.

"The more complex the problem, the simpler their solution and people like the idea that there is a simple solution. It is not that France, and other countries, have become racist, it is more disaffection with the system, but the fact that this has happened must be worrying in the general scheme of things."