however merely given more ammunition to the FN campaign. The party immediately started reminding voters that when Fillon was Prime Minister of France, he had personally inaugurated the largest mosque in France and had spoken glowingly of Islam as “France’s second religion.”

According to a transcript of his speech, given on June 28, 2010, when he cut the ribbon to mark the opening of the largest mosque in France in Argenteuil, northwest Paris, Fillon said that Islam had made an “essential contribution to the industrial development of our country” and that the “Argenteuil New Mosque reflects the vitality of the Muslim community in France.”

“I want to tell you how you can, how you should be proud of this achievement, which reflects the serene registration of Islam in the nationallandscape.”

Fillon went on to boast that the number of mosques in France had risen from 100 in 1970, to over 2,000 in 2010, and that the “French Council of the Muslim Faith is definitely part of our institutional landscape.”

Juppé, on the other hand, was Prime Minister of France from 1995 to 1997 under President Jacques Chirac, during which period he faced major strikes that paralyzed the country, and he personally became very unpopular.

In 2004, Juppé was tried for the felony of abuse of public funds, when he illegally used personnel provided by the City of Paris for running the operations of his then party, the Rassemblement pour la République (“Rally for the Republic”).

He was convicted and sentenced to an 18-month suspended jail sentence, the deprivation of civic rights