Who Is Marine Le Pen, The 'Far-Right' Political Leader Of France? (image@MLP_officiel)
The French political atmosphere is tip-toeing through an unchartered territory now. President Emmanuel Macron was thwarted with a severe blow when the far-right National Rally Party, led by Marine Le Pen, appears to be on the highway to win absolute majority. The party secured 34 percent vote during the first round of snap parliamentary election. A coalition of left-wing parties, named New Popular Front is at the second place with 29 percent of vote share. The centrist and leftist has taken over the battle, and Macron’s centrist Renaissance party and its allies are pushed to third place with only 21 percent votes in their kitty.
Marine Le Pen said French have shown their willingness to turn the page on a contemptuous and corrosive power. She calls the second round of election, which is due on July 7, decisive.
Marine Le Pen is the far-right leader of the National Rally Party founded by her father Jean-Marie Le Pen in 1972. Until 2018, the party was known under the name National Front.
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Le Pen is a French lawyer and politician, who ran for the French presidency in 2012, 2017, and 2022. She served as the party’s president from 2011 to 2021, and has been the member of the National Assembly for the 11th constituency Pas-de-Calais since 2017. Le Pen held the position of parliamentary party leader of the National Rally in the Assembly, from June 2022 to June 2024, until Macron dissolved the lower house and called for a snap election.
Le Pen was made the vice president of the party in 2003, and succeeded her father as the president in 2011. She ran for presidency in 2012, 2017, and 2022. Le Pen secured 33.9 percent and 48.5 percent votes against Macron in 2017, and 2022 respectively, securing second place in both elections. In both, she lost during the second round.
Le Pen maintains hardline notion on immigration and rigorous border security measures. She advocates to lower the number of immigrants permitted to enter Paris, and prohibition of Muslim women wearing head scarves in public places.
To soften the hard image of the party, she has led a movement called “de-demonisation of the National Front”. The movement included limited expulsion of members accused of racism, antisemitism, and Petainism. Le Pen expelled her own father from the party in 2015 after he made controversial statements.
While she liberalises some political position of the party by revoking its opposition to same sex partnerships, unconditional abortion, and support for death penalty, Le Pen still have a strong grip on many of the same historical policies of her party, with more focus on strong anti-immigration, nationalist, and protectionist measures.
Le Pen is supportive of economic nationalism. She favours interventionist role of the government, and oppose globalization and multiculturalism. She also supports banning ritual slaughter.
Before the Russia-Ukraine war, she made supportive comments of Vladimir Putin. While strongly condemning the Russia-Ukraine war, Le Pen stated that Russia “could become an ally of France again”.
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Her move on rebranding her party’s façade has garnered wider attention. Bernard-Henri Levy, one of the strong opposers of her party, described Le Pen’s leadership as “far-right with a human face”.
Le Pen stated that her strategy was not about changing the party’s programme, but about showing it as it really is, and not the image given it to by the media. She also refuses the label of ‘far-right’, considering it as a pejorative term. “How am I party of the extreme right? … I don’t think that our propositions are extreme propositions, whatever the subject”.
However, despite her attempts, the party continue to attract criticism. German Chancellor, Angela Merkel said that she “will contribute to make other political forces stronger than the National Front”. Israel still hold on to its negative opinion of the party, and former Brexit Party leader, Nigel Farage, who is a frequent critic of Islam and immigration, said, “I have never said a bad word about Marine Le Pen; I have never said a good word about her party”.
Will Marine Le Pen beats all odds and clinch the top post will be answered on July 7. However, with more than 200 candidates withdrawing to contest in the second round, it may not be wrong to assert that the wind is blowing in Le Pen’s favour.
