READER ANDREW THOMAS wonders what will happen if Le Pen is elected:

What I wonder is, will the EU-nuchs sanction France for its voters’ temerity the way they did the Austrians for electing Joerg Haider some years ago? Le Pen is at least as objectionable to the EU-nuchs’ delicate sensibilities.

Furthermore, does this event also portend other rightist victories in upcoming elections in Europe? Will Anzar, Berlusconi, and Orban finally get some company?

I think it’s rather unlikely that Le Pen will be elected. But this is an excellent point — I think it’s hard to imagine the EU trying to erect a cordon sanitaire around France as it did with Austria. I do expect that European elections will shift to the right. What worries me — as Howard Anglin puts it — is “the ease with which many Frenchmen (not all, mind you) seem to swing from near-communism to near-nazism.” But the Left’s willingness to adhere to the enemies of the West is bound to cost it.