MOSCOW, December 7. /TASS/. The chairman of the State Duma’s international relations committee, Alexey Pushkov, attributes the French ruling Socialist Party’s failure in the regional elections to ill-considered migration policies. He predicts that Marine Le Pen’s National Front and Nicolas Sarkozy’s Republican Party will continue to gain strength.
In an interview to TASS Pushkov said that the November 13 terrorist attack in Paris was number one factor that contributed to the success of the opposition. "The attack was a consequence of the current French authorities’ inability to control migration flows and resist the threat coming from the Islamic radicals — both new arrivals from the Middle East and those whom the radical movements were recruiting from Muslims residing in France.
Another reason, he said, is a large share of French society have realized the current French government is unable to provide a timely response to the threat the Islamic State (terrorist organization outlawed in Russia) posed to the Middle East.
"Instead of focusing all efforts on the struggle against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq and persuade its allies to follow suit France together with the remained inside the US-led coalition, waiting for the Islamic State to gain strength, consolidate itself and launch active terrorist operations in Europe," Pushkov said.
France’s dependence on external centres of power, the United States and the European Union in the first place, were the third factor for the Socialists’ election failure.
"The French people see that the EU is utterly unable to cope with the migration problem. Angela Merkel’s approach ‘We’ll accommodate all and then we’ll see’ by no means suits the French. It is regarded as a threat. Everybody understands that Hollande is unable to counter it in any way," Pushkov said.