Could Far-Right Leader Marine Le Pen Be France's Next President?

“Le Diable” or “the Devil”, is how many French citizens refer one of the country’s
oldest and most divisive politicians, 88-year-old Jean-Marie Le Pen.
During his nearly 40 years as leader and co-founder of the far-right National Front Party, Le
Pen made headlines for racist, xenophobic and anti-Semitic statements, including his
dismissal of Holocaust gas chambers as only a [quote] “detail of World War Two”.
But today, far more attention is being paid to the so-called “devil’s daughter”,
Marine Le Pen.
Marine has seen a meteoric rise in the polls since taking over the National Front from
her father in 2011.
She is now France’s leading candidate in the presidential election.
So who is Marine Le Pen?
And is she following in her father’s footsteps?
The Le Pen family has been in the public eye for decades.
Marine is the youngest of three daughters, and grew up while her father was gaining notoriety
as one of the country’s most reviled politicians.
Her father was a staunch fiscal and social conservative, who saw no place for multiculturalism
in France.
At the time these views were seen as extreme, and Marine was reportedly teased in school
and shunned by teachers.
When she was eight, the family’s Paris flat was bombed.
While no one was hurt, Marine still references the event as what propelled her into politics.
She later said, “I wanted to do other things, but politics is a virus.
If you have it, you can never get away from it.”
Marine and her sisters reportedly “lived and breathed” the national front party . In
fact, both of her marriages have been to fellow party members.
Marine went to law school and, around the early 2000’s, worked behind-the-scenes as
the National Front’s Director of Legal Affairs.
With the help of her father, Marine ascended to become Vice President of the National Front.
In 2007, Jean-Marie ran for President of France, and Marine managed his campaign.
But his views were perceived by many French voters to be too extreme, and he lost that
election by a wide margin
In 2011, Marine took over the National Front from her father and almost overnight, brought
the party back up in the polls.
Under her leadership, the National Front has taken on a massive overhaul of its public
image, moving away from what was perceived to be a fringe party populated by aging bigots,
to a modern, ‘common sense’ conservative movement.
Marine recruited countless younger politicians, softened the party’s rhetoric, publicly
denounced racist and anti-semitic views and even threatened to sue anyone who publicly
labeled National Front as “extreme right”.
This re-branding campaign perhaps reached its zenith in 2015, when Marine forced her
father out, after he refused to back off of Holocaust minimizing statements.
Meanwhile, some of Marine’s views have progressed beyond her father’s.
She is decidedly pro-choice and gay-friendly, and has been openly critical of capitalism.
However she hasn’t veered that far.
Like her father, Marine has been accused of xenophobia, and has taken a hard line against
multiculturalism and immigration.
In 2015, Marine went on trial for inciting religious hatred after she compared Muslim
street prayers to the Nazi occupation of France during World War II.
The state prosecutor determined that Le Pen was exercising her right to free speech and
she was ultimately acquitted.
Today, in her presidential campaign, she has advocated for stricter border control and
a return to the Franc currency, as well as an exit from NATO and the European Union.
She has even proposed a measure that would deport legal immigrants who have been out
of work for six months or longer.
Marine Le Pen’s divisive views have fueled a move to the far-right across France.
As of February 2017, she was leading the polls by a small margin, and experts predict that
she’ll win the first round of run-off elections in April.
But not everyone is happy about her rise in popularity.
Many of Marine’s speeches have been met with protests, some of which have turned violent.
But if the success of Donald Trump and Brexit referendum are any indication, France may
be ready for a populist, nationalist leader.
We’ll have to wait until Spring to see how they’ll vote.
Isolationist sentiments are a major bolster for right wing politicians, not just in France,
but in all of Europe.
To find out more about the rise of conservatism in the region, check out this video.
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Could Far-Right Leader Marine Le Pen Be France's Next President?

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