"I'm not going down the usual road of whipping up outrage"

This morning's From Our Own Correspondent featured a highly informative profile of Jean-Marie Le Pen from the BBC's Paris correspondent Hugh Schofield. 

It was also a highly unusual profile (for a BBC reporter) - as Hugh himself noted: 

I'm conscious in writing this that I'm not going down the usual road of whipping up outrage against this "racist, antisemitic throwback" - and some listeners may feel I'm letting the man off lightly. But, to be honest, I think it's more useful to explain the appeal. 

And 'explain the appeal' he certainly tried to do. 

It's not often that you hear a BBC report which asks the question "Is he racist?" about M. Le Pen and then answers its own question by replying "Not really" - and, even more unusually, that does so after first saying "whatever that means" about the word 'racist'! 

(Complaints will doubtless be sent to Feedback.)

The piece is also unusual for featuring the word 'contumely'.

A transcription follows...

Rabble rousing cartoonists and Jewish people

Is it me or is there something unintentionally revealing in Hugh Scofield’s words. “They may have taken refuge” (weird phrase to use in the light of the current refugee situation)  “in the notion that the targets then were rabble-rousing cartoonists and Jewish people.” 

What what??

Is he saying “before Friday the majority weren’t bothered because they thought the  threat was confined to those who had been demonstrably provocative ....“Rabble-rousing cartoonists and Jewish people.”

I despair.