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Don’t be fooled by the Front National leader Marine Le Pen

She has given the Front National a makeover, but it remains true to itself

by Christine Ockrent / June 19, 2014 / Leave a comment
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Published in July 2014 issue of Prospect Magazine

“Marine, 45, is blue-eyed, blonde, stout, aggressive and talented. A lawyer with a smoker’s voice, she has been in politics since she was 18.” © Gauthier Bouchet


It took Jean-Marie Le Pen 42 years to build his political movement on the ruins of “French Algeria” and the remnants of pre-Second World War fascist ideology. It has taken his daughter just over three years to transform the Front National (FN) into a party palatable enough to take the lead in the latest European elections.

Marine, 45, is blue-eyed, blonde, stout, aggressive and talented. A lawyer with a smoker’s voice, she has been in politics since she was 18. Enthused with her father’s oratory, her whole life ensconced in the family estate near Paris after two divorces, she has been smart enough to dissociate herself from her father’s anti-Semitic obsessions. She openly contradicted him for the first time in June over a comment he made about a Jewish pop star, in which he appeared to refer to the Holocaust. The dyed-in-the-wool old activists may have thought she was too soft at first, but she has delivered victory.

The Front National today has just one face: a woman—the only female leader in French politics—whose looks, personal history and lifestyle seem commonplace enough to appeal to a wide variety of voters. Women see no condescending attitude; those on low incomes, deserting the left, like her vocabulary; the young, bored with mainstream political egos and tricks, find her provocative; successful second generation immigrants, who want law, order, and less foreigners, agree with her arguments.

The far right today is an aggregate of several layers: anti-Semiti…

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Comments

  1. Robert
    June 20, 2014 at 13:59
    sadly I think the far right will gain if you keep hammering the poor we have no body else who listens to us, look at MIliband what a useless chap he's going to be taking us back to Victorian times, no thanks we are lucky we do not have a real far right party here one who could speak, mind you UKIP will do.

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About this author

Christine Ockrent
Christine Ockrent is the former Editor-in-Chief of L'Express
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