美国国家公共电台 NPR Le Pen Finds Support In Pro-Europe French City

LOURDES GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

And now to France, where the polls show a tight race in the upcoming presidential election. Among the subjects dividing the population is membership in the European Union. The EU is still very popular in France, but right-wing candidate Marin Le Pen says if elected, she will hold a referendum on leaving the EU, and that is winning supporters in unlikely places. NPR's Eleanor Beardsley has our story from eastern France near the border with Germany.

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ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE 1: Cathedral bells ring out over the majestic 2 French city of Metz. Metz was built by the French and the Germans and has a shared history going back more than a thousand years. Metz is in the heart of the Alsace-Lorraine region, which changed hands four times since the Franco-Prussian War in 1871. Today, a group of soldiers is showing off their tanks and military hardware to the public in the cathedral square.

JONATHAN NAEGELE: My name is Jonathan. I'm the communication officer for the Deutsche-Fransuziche Brigade. It's a binational military brigade with German and French units working together.

BEARDSLEY: Jonathan Naegele of the French army says this region has close-knit ties with Germany in just about every area. He describes a sort of kinship between the two peoples. It's Franco-German friendship week in Metz, and French and German flags fly together all over town.

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BEARDSLEY: Mayors from twinned cities speak at a reception. It wasn't always like this, says Metz Mayor Dominique Gros. The 75-year-old says his father, grandfather and great-grandfather all fought in wars against Germany.

DOMINIQUE GROS: (Through interpreter) When I was little, I learned that Germany was our enemy, but we've managed to overcome this ancestral hatred 3, and we built Europe together. Today, we work together. Our young people go to university together. And we have the same democratic values.

BEARDSLEY: But Gros says people are beginning to look inward again, and he's worried by the nationalist feelings being stirred up by Marine 4 Le Pen. Despite the deep European sentiment here, a recent poll showed Le Pen has a lot of support in Alsace-Lorraine. Franck Bucher is a political reporter for a local paper. He says many French people are frustrated 5 when they see the strength of the economies in nearby Germany, Switzerland and Luxembourg, where many of them go to work.

FRANCK BUCHER: (Through interpreter) People feel like the French politicians aren't able to do anything about the economy and social problems in France, so part of Le Pen's success comes from this despair. And because she has never been in power, she's able to position herself as the anti-system candidate.

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MARINE LE PEN: (Speaking French).

BEARDSLEY: While Metz celebrating Franco-German friendship, on the other side of town, Le Pen is holding a rally. She accuses her opponents of trying to scare people about her opposition 6 to the EU. We don't need the EU to go shopping or to work in Germany, she says.

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LE PEN: (Through interpreter) Putting back borders doesn't mean closing your country and keeping people and goods from coming and going. It just means being able to control which people and goods come and go and to keep certain people from getting into our country and staying.

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BEARDSLEY: Jerome and Julien Ferrand are brothers in their 60s. They started voting for Le Pen's party, the National Front, in 2005 when the French people rejected the enlargement of the EU in a referendum. But the French government pushed the measure through parliament anyway. Jerome Ferrand says the people's no was turned into a yes to build an EU that nobody wanted.

JEROME FERRAND: (Through interpreter) We want a Europe of nations in solidarity 7 but one where every country has control and can do what's best for its own people. We don't want to live under German hegemony.

BEARDSLEY: The brothers say they don't blame Germany. They blame French politicians for taking the EU too far. The men say Franco-German relations will be just fine without the EU. Eleanor Beardsley, NPR News, Metz, France.