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Geopolitics

Kindred Spirits: Brigitte Bardot and Far Right Candidate Marine Le Pen

Sex-symbol turned actress and animal rights activist Brigitte Bardot has endorsed right-wing party candidate Marine Le Pen for France's presidential elections. A critic of immigration, the former beauty has been cited five times for "inciting ra

PARIS — Brigitte Bardot has announced she’ll vote for Marine Le Pen during Sunday's first round of the French presidential election.

“I think this woman is just admirable. She has the best ideas, especially compared to those other two clowns,” she declares, talking about the election frontrunners, François Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy.

Bardot, 77, does not mince her words, or actions. The longtime animal rights activist has also become an outspoken critic of immigration, and has been cited five times for "inciting racial hatred."

She doesn't hold back either when she talking about the two leading candidates, particularly Sarkozy, for whom she voted in 2007: “I am disgusted by this guy,” she says. As for François Hollande, she has a very personal opinion of the reason why it is not a good idea to vote for him. “France cannot be ruled by a man named ‘Hollande.’ It’s just not possible! It would be as if we had a president named ‘Germany’,” she explains.

According to the 1960s icon, Marine Le Pen is different because she managed to “rehabilitate the National Front’s image.” “This new ‘Marine version’ of the French extreme-right party is neither fascist nor Nazi,” says Bardot, who also appreciates the fact that “Marine is the only one who denounced the halal meat scandal, which is one of my priorities, as I fight against ritual slaughter.”

But according to Brigitte Bardot, the archetypal “ideal president” remains Vladimir Putin, because “he did more for animals’ rights than any of our presidents.”

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Geopolitics

U.S., France, Israel: How Three Model Democracies Are Coming Unglued

France, Israel, United States: these three democracies all face their own distinct problems. But these problems are revealing disturbing cracks in society that pose a real danger to hard-earned progress that won't be easily regained.

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Israeli anti-government protesters take to the streets in Tel-Aviv, after Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired Defence Minister Yoav Galant.

Dominique Moïsi

"I'd rather be a Russian than a Democrat," reads the t-shirt of a Republican Party supporter in the U.S.

"We need to bring the French economy to its knees," announces the leader of the French union Confédération Générale du Travail.

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The United States, France, Israel: three countries, three continents, three situations that have nothing to do with each other. But each country appears to be on the edge of a nervous breakdown of what seemed like solid democracies.

How can we explain these political excesses, irrational proclamations, even suicidal tendencies?

The answer seems simple: in the United States, in France, in Israel — far from an exhaustive list — democracy is facing the challenge of society's ever-greater polarization. We can manage the competition of ideas and opposing interests. But how to respond to rage, even hatred, borne of a sense of injustice and humiliation?

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