I do understand that if you are a UKIP supporter it is because you really don’t want anything to do with Europe, Brussels, foreign sounding names or incomprehensible policies foisted upon you – or the Euro!

Just put your hackles down for five minutes at my headline, and listen up. There is a European Union that you should be part of. It is full of foreign sounding names that are impossible to remember and weird acronyms. I live in France, and speak French – and I tend to gloss over these strange factions, so I sympathise.

If you live in the UK and read the English media, and especially if you are a UKIP supporter, you will understand that just off the coast of Britannia is a place called ‘Europe’ chock full of people happy to be ‘European’, and bewildered that the ‘awkward squad’ aka ‘the British’ don’t wish to join them, don’t want to have their economy ruined by the Euro, and resent the loss of their sovereignty, amongst other complaints.

What you won’t read is that there are lots of people just like you in Europe.

You won’t read it in the British media because they prefer to support the European project by alleging all sorts of sexual and financial shenanigans on the part of Nigel Farage. That is how we deal with unhelpful political viewpoints.

You won’t read it in the French media because they practise straight forward censorship. They just refuse to mention ‘unhelpful’ political viewpoints. They don’t mind the odd mention of Marine Le Penn because they get extra brownie points for a quick scathing reference to her ‘racist’ Father.

But they will not mention François Asselineau. Which is surprising, because François was a prominent Cabinet Minister under Sarkozy, and you would expect the equivalent of George Osborne leaving the Conservative party and setting up a new party to garner at least the odd sentence. It doesn’t.

That is not because François is a racist, or because he engages in some beyond the pale sexual practices, it is because he commits far greater crimes. He uses his background as an economic advisor to several governments to expound his theory that France shouldn’t be in the European Union. *Gasp!* The love of sovereignty that dare not speak its name…

He founded a party a year ago called the l’Union Populaire Républicaine (or the UPR for short) which has been systematically banned from conference halls, left out of hustings, ignored by the main stream media – and most extraordinary of all – silenced by the French blogosphere. There has been a humongous row going on at French wikipedia because every time someone sets up a page for this previously prominent politician, it is deleted – on the grounds that the only mention of François and the UPR is in the blogosphere, not the main stream media, and therefore not a ‘reliable source’. Oh the Irony!

Russia Today will talk about him, the English wikipedia give him a page, Iranian TV even managed a mention, but the only French citizens who are aware that there is any opposition at all to the European project in France are those who live in London…

François stood as a Presidential candidate against Sarkozy and Hollande, though you need to be a determined Raccoon to find any mention of that (only in English, not French!!!) – and even unknown and minor Trotskyist candidates managed to get sufficient publicity to qualify – but not François. The crime that dare not speak its name indeed. Amazingly, François has managed to acquire 4,000 paid up supporters in a year, purely by word of mouth, and via his blog.

So what are these ‘extremist views’ that he holds?

He thinks that although the creation of the European project was sold to a battered post-war France as the means to acquire longed for peace, the Nato alliance has succeeded in dragging France into unwanted foreign wars in oil rich countries at the US behest.

He thinks that the Eurozone has been a disastrous development which has made life more expensive for ordinary workers.

He thinks that far from being the economic purchasing powerhouse allowing Europe to compete with the US and China, the European Commission prevents any protective measures comparable to those blithely practiced by the United States or China.

As for job guarantees, he points out that the EC supports the transfer of jobs to lower waged newer members of the Union which has precisely the opposite effect.

Migration? Whoa! Careful François! He points out that France has more immigration than any other European country and under the Shengen agreement is completely unable to control this.

As for the Common Market – that behemoth of British prejudice – Brussels has managed to legislate out of existence most of the traditional agriculture, leaving only a dependance on compensatory tariffs and no pride in producing.

He points out that the only time the French people were offered a referendum, they voted against being part of the ‘European Union’ – and were promptly ignored!

Does he not sound incredibly like Nigel Farage – (even when run through Google translate)?

Please give the man a helping hand. Write about him if you have the time, join his Facebook page if not. Include Fred Cecca or #UPR in your retweets.

Let him know that the British aren’t anti-Europeans, just anti the European Union. You have a lot in common with people of other European nations. They would like to get out from under the yoke of Brussels too – and Nato.

I’m off to discover what other fledgling parties are being suppressed that also want to be out of the EU. You have a lot to gain from joining forces with them – albeit they have difficult names.