Protests boost far-right leader Le Pen

PARIS, April 22 (UPI) -- Rioting earlier this year by French immigrants from the Middle East and Africa has given a boost to the far-right National Front, a new poll finds.

Jean Le Pen, the group's leader, has a 21 percent approval rating, the polling institute IFOP said. The New York Times reports that is only 8 points behind Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin.

French voters' rejection of the proposed European Union constitution also helped Le Pen. The recent demonstrations against a labor law that would have allowed employers to fire young workers supplied television images of immigrants protesting beside students, a reminder of the earlier riots.

"All of these crises were very different, but their common point is that they benefited parties outside the political system," said Frederic Dabi of IFOP.

Le Pen has had occasional surges of popularity before, even getting into a presidential runoff against Jacques Chirac at one point. But the protests by immigrants were a public relations gift to a longtime opponent of immigration, allowing the National Front to create a video showing scenes of violence under a banner that said "Immigration, explosion in the suburbs, Le Pen foretold it."