MARINE LE PEN EYES HISTORY IN FRANCE
Marion
Anne Perrine Le Pen, known as Marine Le Pen (French pronunciation:
[maˈʁin ləˈpɛn]; born 5 August 1968), is a French lawyer and
politician. She is the president of the National Front (FN), a political
party in France. She is the youngest daughter of long-time FN leader
Jean-Marie Le Pen and the aunt of FN MP Marion Maréchal-Le Pen.
Le Pen joined the National Front in 1986 and was elected as a regional councillor (1998–present), a Member of European Parliament (2004–present), and a municipal councillor in Hénin-Beaumont (2008–2011). She won the leadership of the FN in 2011 with 67.65% (11,546 votes) of the vote, defeating Bruno Gollnisch and succeeding her father who had been president of the party since he founded it in 1972.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7] In 2012, she placed third in the presidential election with 17.90% of the vote, behind François Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy.[8][9][10][11] She launched a second presidential bid for the upcoming election, scheduled for April 2017.
Described as more democratic and republican than her nationalist father, Le Pen has led a movement of "de-demonization of the Front National" to detoxify and soften its image, based on renovated positions and renewed teams, also expelling controversial members accused of racism, antisemitism, or pétainism. She expelled her father from the party on 20 August 2015 after new controversial statements.[12][13]
She has also relaxed some political positions of the party, advocating for civil unions for same-sex couples instead of her party's previous opposition to legal recognition of same-sex partnerships, accepting unconditional abortion and withdrawing the death penalty from her platform.[14][15][16][17]
Le Pen was ranked among the most influential people in 2011 and 2015 by the Time 100.[18][19] In 2016, she was ranked as second-most influential MEP in the European Parliament by Politico, just behind the President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz.[20]
Contents
1 Early life
1.1 Childhood
1.2 Legal studies and work
1.3 Private life
2 Early political career
2.1 First steps and rise within National Front: 1986–2010
2.2 Internal campaign for the FN leadership: 2010–11
2.2.1 Controversy
3 Media rise (2002–2011)
3.1 National media
3.2 International media
4 President of the FN
4.1 De-demonization of the FN
4.2 First steps as a new leader: 2011
4.3 First presidential candidacy: 2011–12
4.4 Electoral progression: 2012–16
4.5 Second presidential candidacy: 2016–17
5 Political positions
5.1 Economy
5.1.1 Agriculture and environment
5.1.2 Energy and transport
5.1.3 Taxation
5.2 European Union and globalization
5.2.1 Euro and eurozone
5.2.2 Geopolitics and intergovernmental organizations
5.3 Immigration
5.3.1 Illegal immigration
5.3.2 Legal immigration
5.3.3 Citizenship and nationality
5.3.4 Communitarianism and secularism
5.4 Social issues
5.5 National politics and overseas
5.5.1 Mayotte
5.5.2 New Caledonia
5.6 International politics
5.6.1 Europe
5.6.1.1 Russia and Ukraine
5.6.2 North Africa, Middle East and Asia
5.6.3 Africa
6 Elections (1993–2012)
6.1 European elections
6.1.1 North-West France in 2009
6.1.2 Île-de-France in 2004
6.2 Parliamentary elections
6.2.1 Paris in 1993
6.2.2 Lens in 2002
6.2.3 Hénin-Beaumont in 2007
6.2.4 Hénin-Beaumont in 2012
6.2.4.1 Convicted for fraud
6.3 Regional elections
6.3.1 Nord-Pas-de-Calais in 2010
6.3.2 Île-de-France in 2004
6.3.3 Nord-Pas-de-Calais in 1998
6.4 Municipal elections
6.4.1 Hénin-Beaumont in 2008
6.4.2 2009 Hénin-Beaumont by-election
7 Political mandates
7.1 Local mandates
7.2 European mandates
8 Bibliography
9 References
10 External links
Early life
Childhood
Marion Anne Perrine Le Pen was born on 5 August 1968[21] in Neuilly-sur-Seine. She is the youngest of the three daughters of Jean-Marie Le Pen, a Breton politician and a former paratrooper, with his first wife Pierrette Lalanne. She was baptized 25 April 1969, at La Madeleine by Father Pohpot. Her godfather was Henri Botey, a relative of her father.
She has two sisters: Yann and Marie Caroline. In 1976, Marine survived a bomb attack on the family as they slept in their beds.[22] She was eight when a bomb meant for her father exploded in the stairwell outside the family's apartment. The blast ripped a hole into the outside wall of the building. Marine, her two older sisters and their parents were unharmed.[23]
She was a student at the lycée Florent Schmitt at Saint-Cloud. Her parents divorced in 1987.[24][25]
Legal studies and work
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Le Pen studied law at Panthéon-Assas University, graduating with a Master of Laws in 1991 and a Master of Advanced Studies (DEA) in criminal law in 1992.[26] Registered at the Paris bar association, she worked as a lawyer for six years (1992–1998).[26] In France - as in many other countries - when a defendant cannot afford a lawyer, one is chosen to represent them. She often fulfilled this role.
In 1992, she received the certificate as a lawyer (CAPA) and became a lawyer practising in Paris. She then argued regularly before the criminal chamber of the 23rd District Court of Paris which judges immediate appearances. She was a member of the Bar of Paris until 1998, when she joined the legal department of the National Front.
Private life
Le Pen was raised Roman Catholic.[27] She was married in 1995 to Franck Chauffroy, a business executive who worked for the National Front. By Chauffroy, she has three children (Jehanne, Louis, and Mathilde).[24] After her divorce from Chauffroy in 2000, she married Eric Lorio in 2002, the former national secretary of the National Front and a former adviser to the Regional election in Nord-Pas de Calais, whom she divorced in 2006.
Since 2009, she has been in a relationship with Louis Aliot. He was the National Front General Secretary from 2005 to 2010, then the National Front vice president who was in charge of the Project.[28] She spends most of her time in Saint-Cloud, and has resided in La Celle-Saint-Cloud with her three children since September 2014. She has an apartment in Hénin-Beaumont. In 2010, she also bought a house with Aliot in Millas.[29]
Early political career
First steps and rise within National Front: 1986–2010
In 1986, at the age of 18, Marine Le Pen joined the FN. In 2000, she became president of Generations Le Pen, a loose association close to the party aimed at "de-demonizing the Front National".[24] In 1998, she joined the FN's juridical branch, which she led until 2003.
In 2000, she joined the FN Executive Committee (bureau politique). In 2003, she became vice-president of the FN.[24] In 2006, Jean-Marie Le Pen entrusted her with the management of his 2007 presidential campaign. In 2007, she became one of the two executive vice-presidents of the FN and was in charge of training, communication and publicity.[26]
In 1998, she acquired her first political mandate when she was elected regional councillor in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais. From 2002, she began to establish her parliamentary base in the former coal mining area of the Pas-de-Calais.[24]
Her aim is to expand the political influence of the FN and transform it into a "big popular party that addresses itself not only to the electorate on the right but to all the French people".[3] She has frequently stated that she rules out any political alliance with the Union for a Popular Movement.[30][31]
She has at numerous times distanced herself from some of Jean-Marie Le Pen's controversial statements,[32] notably those relating to war-crimes, which the media point to her attempts to improve the party's image. While her father has provoked a long-time controversy by saying that the gas chambers were "a detail of the history of World War II", she said it has been "the height of barbarism".[33][34]
Internal campaign for the FN leadership: 2010–11
Her candidacy was endorsed by an overwhelming majority of senior executives[35] and notably by Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of the FN.[36][37]
She spent four months campaigning for the FN leadership, holding meetings with FN members in 51 departments to explain in detail her political views and projects for the party.[38] All the other departments were visited by one of her official supporters.[35]
On 3 September 2010, she launched her internal campaign at Cuers, Var.[39] During a meeting in Paris on 14 November 2010, she claimed: "My project is not to assemble our political family, or rather is not only to assemble our political family. It consists of shaping the Front National as the center of grouping of the whole French people". She also explained why the FN leadership and the candidature for the presidential election must not be dissociated: thus the next FN leader will run in the 2012 presidential election.[40] During her final meeting at Hénin-Beaumont on 19 December 2010, she claimed that the FN presents the real debates of the next presidential campaign.[41][42] Most of her campaign tours throughout France were reported in local newspapers and regional television programmes.
In December 2010 and early January 2011, FN members voted by post to elect their new president and the hundred members of the Central Committee. The party held its congress at Tours for two days (15–16 January 2011).[43] On 16 January 2011, Marine Le Pen was officially elected with 67.65% (11,546 votes) as the new president of the Front National[26][44] and Jean-Marie Le Pen became de facto its honorary chairman. Her challenger Bruno Gollnisch polled 32.35% (5,522 votes).
Controversy
Marine Le Pen stirred up controversy during the internal campaign. During a speech to the party faithful in Lyon on 10 December 2010, she said that the weekly illegal blocking of public streets and squares in multiple French cities (notably the rue Myrha in the 18th arrondissement of Paris) for Muslim prayers was comparable with an occupation of parts of French territory. Specifically, Le Pen said:
For those who want to talk a lot about World War II, if it's about occupation, then we could also talk about it (Muslim prayers in the streets), because that is occupation of territory. ... It is an occupation of sections of the territory, of districts in which religious laws apply. ... There are of course no tanks, there are no soldiers, but it is nevertheless an occupation and it weighs heavily on local residents.[45]
The mention of World War II brought claims from the media and politicians that she had drawn an irresponsible parallel with the Nazi occupation of France (May 1940 – December 1944).[46] Nearly the entire political and media class strongly criticised her statement, which was widely commented on by different political analysts.[47][48][49][50][51][52] Whereas the CRIF,[53] the French Council of Muslim Faith (CFCM)[54] and the LICRA[55] denounced her statement, other groups like the MRAP[56] and the LDH[57] declared their intention of lodging a formal complaint. The imam of the Great Mosque of Paris and former president of the CFCM, Dalil Boubakeur, claimed that though her parallel was questionable and condemnable, she had asked a valid question.[58]
A member of the FN's Executive Committee, Louis Aliot, denounced "the attempted manipulation of opinion by communitarian groups and those really responsible for the current situation in France".[59] On 13 December 2010, she confirmed her statement during a press conference held in the FN's headquarters in Nanterre.[60][61][62] After Jean-François Kahn's comments on BFM TV on 13 December 2010, she denounced "state manipulation" mounted from the Elysée with the intention of demonizing her in public opinion.[63][64]
On 15 December 2015, the Lyon court acquitted her of "inciting hatred", considering that her statement "did not target all of the Muslim community" and was protected "as a part of freedom of expression".[65]
Media rise (2002–2011)
National media
Marine Le Pen on 22 April 2005
Her various appearances on television and radio have played an important role in her political rise at national and local levels. Her political personality regularly attracts the attention of the French media[66][67][68][69][70] as well as the European,[25][71][72][73][74] the Middle Eastern[75][76] and the US press.[77][78][79]
On 5 May 2002, after the run-off in the 2002 presidential election, she took part in a televised debate on France 3. Political analysts compared her appearance to a "media baptism" and claim that her political emergence has its roots in this debate.
During the programme Mots croisés (Crossed Words) on France 2 on 5 October 2009,[80] Marine Le Pen quoted sections of Frédéric Mitterrand's autobiographical novel The Bad Life, accusing him of having sex with underage boys and engaging in "sex tourism", demanding his resignation as a Minister of Culture.[81][82][83][84] According to French political commentator Jérôme Fourquet, during the Mitterrand case she broke through and gained a media ascendancy over the party.[85]
Hosted on France 2 by journalist and commentator Arlette Chabot, À vous de juger (You Be The Judge) was one of France's foremost political programmes. For her first appearance as a guest debater on 14 January 2010, Marine Le Pen opposed Éric Besson, then Minister of Immigration, Integration, National Identity and Mutually Supportive Development.[86]
Marine Le Pen in 2008
For her first appearance as a main guest on 9 December 2010, she was successively questioned on economic, societal and immigration matters by Arlette Chabot and political commentator Alain Duhamel, then debated with the socialist mayor of Évry Manuel Valls and finally was matched against Rachida Dati, former Minister of Justice.[87] Her appearance attracted 3,356,000 viewers (14.6% of the televised audience),[88] which represented the highest viewing figures for 2010 and the fourth best since the start of the series in September 2005.[89]
In December 2010, French journalist Guillaume Tabard described her as the "revelation of the year". He further described her as "first an electoral phenomenon" and "a media phenomenon after".[90]
Hosted on France 2 by journalist and anchorman David Pujadas, Des paroles et des actes (Words and Acts) replaced À vous de juger. For her first appearance as a main guest on 23 June 2011, Le Pen opposed Cécile Duflot, national secretary of the Greens.[91][92] Her appearance attracted 3,582,000 viewers which represented 15.1% of the televised audience.[93][94]
Hosted on TF1 by anchorwoman Laurence Ferrari and political commentator François Bachy, Parole directe (Direct Speech) is one of France's foremost political programmes. For her first appearance as a sole guest on 15 September 2011, Le Pen attracted an average of 6 million viewers (23.3% of the televised audience) with a peak of 7.3 million in the second half of the programme.[95][96]
International media
At an international level, she was invited by the Quebec web-radio Rockik in December 2008,[97] the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (Radio Canada) in May 2010[98] and the Israeli radio 90FM in March 2011.[99] In March 2011, she appeared on the front cover page of The Weekly Standard magazine with the heading "The Future of the European Right?".[100] During a press conference organized on 13 January 2012 by the European American Press Club, she spoke in front of international journalists about various topical and thematic issues.[101]
On 4 April 2011, she appeared for the first time as a candidate in the 2011 Time 100 Poll.[102] On 21 April, she was listed in the 2011 Time 100.[18] Vladimir Zhirinovsky, leader of the far-right Liberal Democratic Party of Russia and vice chairman of the State Duma, wrote a commentary about her political destiny.[103]
In October 2011, she presented her book in Verona, Italy and met Assunta Almirante, the widow of the far-right MSI leader Giorgio Almirante.[104] The logo of the Front National was inspired by MSI logo.
In February 2013, she spoke at the Cambridge Union Society, the University of Cambridge's debating society. Her appearance sparked controversy, with anti-fascist group Unite Against Fascism opposing her invitation on a No Platform basis and organising a demonstration of about 200 people outside the venue.[105][106] The protests were supported by numerous Cambridge societies, including Cambridge University Students' Union and Cambridge Universities Labour Club, however others, notably the Cambridge Libertarians,[107] supported her right to freedom of expression.
President of the FN
De-demonization of the FN
From a general point of view, Marine Le Pen is often judged more moderate than her father. A part of the French electorate considers her positions more nuanced, polished and detoxified than Jean-Marie Le Pen's "provocations". Her smiling, calm image contrasts with much of the stereotypes generally attributed to her political family.[108] At the beginning of her media rise, she often talked about her particular treatment as the daughter of "Le Pen" and of the 1976 attack (then the biggest bomb explosion in France since World War II).[108][109] It has been seen as a way to humanize her party.[108][110]
Marine Le Pen in the traditional Jeanne d'Arc march, 3 May 2007
For example, Bernard-Henri Lévy, a strong opponent of the FN, talked about "a far-right with a human face".[111] Journalist Michèle Cotta claims that the fact she is a young woman condemning racism and refusing her father's "faults" (notably his enjoyment of shocking other people) contributed to her strategy of de-demonization of the National Front.[112] References to World War II or to the French colonial wars are absent from her speeches, which is often looked on as a generation gap.[113] She distanced herself from her father on the gas chambers he famously called "a detail in the history of World War II", saying that she "didn't share the same vision of these events".[114] L'Express wrote that the exclusion of Jean-Marie Le Pen in 2015 was the completion of her endeavour. The opponents of the FN denounce a more dangerous strategy because of its evident success.[115]
In a 2010 RTL interview, Le Pen stated that her strategy was not about changing the FN's program but about showing it as it really is, instead of the image given to it by the media in the previous decades. The media and her political adversaries are accused of spreading an "unfair, wrong and caricatural" image of the National Front. She refuses the qualification of far-right or extreme-right, considering it a "perjorative" term : "How am I party of the extreme right? ... I don't think that our propositions are extreme propositions, whatever the subject".[116] However, the radical far-right (e.g., Minute, Rivarol, Patrick Buisson, Henry de Lesquen) reproached her for abandoning or softening her stance on immigration, gay marriage and abortion. In her speech in Lyon on 10 December 2010, she mentioned the fate of gays living in difficult neighbourhoods, victims of religious laws replacing the republican law.[117][118][119]
In 2014, the American magazine Foreign Policy mentioned her, along with four other Frenchmen, in its list of the 100 global thinkers of the year, underlining the way she "renovated the image" of her party, which had became a model for other right-wing parties in Europe after her success in the European elections.[120] At a European level, she stopped the alliance built by her father with some right-wing extremist parties and refused to be part of a group with the radical Jobbik or the neo-nazi Golden dawn. Her transnational allies share the fact that they have officially condemned antisemitism, accepted a more liberal approach toward social matters and to be sometimes pro-Israel such as the Dutch PVV. French historian Nicolas Lebourg concluded she is looked upon as a compass for them in order to copy while maintaining local particularities.[121][122]
For a long time, she has been reluctant to endorse Donald Trump, while other European populists have already embraced his candidacy, and only supported him by saying: "For France, anything is better than Hillary Clinton". However, on 8 November 2016 she posted a tweet congratulating Trump on his presidential victory.[123] Nevertheless, her strategy has difficulties as her image seems to remain controversial: Germany's Angela Merkel has said she will "I will contribute to make other political forces be stronger than the National Front" and Israel still holds a bad opinion of her party.[124][125] Nigel Farage has said : "I've never said a bad word about Marine Le Pen; I've never said a good word about her party".[126]
Her social program and her support of SYRIZA in the 2015 Greek general elections have led Nicolas Sarkozy to declare her a far-left politician sharing some of Jean-Luc Mélenchon's propositions. President François Hollande said she was talking "like a leaflet of the Communist Party". Eric Zemmour, journalist for the conservative newspaper Le Figaro, wrote during the 2012 presidential election that the FN had become a left-wing party under the influence of Florian Philippot. She has also relaxed some political positions of the party, advocating for civil unions for same-sex couples instead of her party's previous opposition to legal recognition of same-sex partnerships, accepting unconditional abortion and withdrawing the death penalty from her platform.[127][128][14][15][16][17]
First steps as a new leader: 2011
As a president of the Front National, Marine Le Pen currently sits as an ex officio member among the FN Executive Office (8 members),[129] the Executive Committee (42 members)[130] and the Central Committee (3 ex officio members, 100 elected members, 20 co-opted members).[131]
During her opening speech in Tours on 16 January 2011, she advocated to "restore the political framework of the national community" and to implement the direct democracy which enables the "civic responsibility and the collective tie" thanks to the participation of public-spirited citizens for the decisions. The predominant political theme was the uncompromising defence of a protective and efficient State, which favours secularism, prosperity and liberties. She also denounced the "Europe of Brussels" which "everywhere imposed the destructive principles of ultra-liberalism and free trade, at the expense of public utilities, employment, social equity and even our economic growth which became within twenty years the weakest of the world".[132]
After the traditional Joan of Arc and Labor Day march in Paris on 1 May 2011, she gave her first speech in front of 3000 supporters.[133][134] On 11 August 2011, she held an exceptional press conference about the current systemic crisis.[135]
On 10 and 11 September 2011, she made her political comeback with the title "the voice of people, the spirit of France" in the convention center of Acropolis in Nice.[136] During her closing speech on 11 September 2011, she tackled the audience about immigration, insecurity, the economic and social situation, reindustrialization and 'strong state'.[137]
During a demonstration held in front of the Senate on 8 December 2011, she expressed during a speech her "firm and absolute opposition" to the right of foreigners to vote.[138]
She regularly holds thematic press conferences[139] and interventions[140] on varied issues in French, European and international politics.
First presidential candidacy: 2011–12
Main articles: French presidential election, 2012 and Marine Le Pen presidential campaign, 2012
Marine Le Pen sings "La Marseillaise" at the conclusion of the presentation of her presidential project held in Paris on 19 November 2011.
Marine Le Pen present her presidential project on 19 November 2011 in Paris.
Marine Le Pen stood in the 2012 French presidential election. On 16 May 2011, her presidential candidacy was unanimously validated by the FN Executive Committee.[141] On 10 and 11 September 2011, her political comeback in Nice prefigured the launching of her presidential campaign.[137] During a press conference on 6 October 2011, she officially unveiled the line-up of her presidential campaign team.[142]
On 19 November 2011, she presented in Paris the main thematic issues of her presidential project: sovereign people and democracy, Europe, reindustrialization and strong state, family and education, immigration and assimilation versus communitarianism, geopolitics and international politics.[143][144][145] During a press conference held on 12 January 2012,[146] she presented in detail the assessment of her presidential project[147] and a plan of debt paydown of France.[148] During a press conference held on 1 February 2012, she presented an outline of her presidential project for the overseas departments and territories of France.[149] Many observers have notice her tendance to enhance economical and social subjects such as globalization and delocalisations, instead of immigration or law and order which have been the paramount platform of the FN in the previous decades.
On 11 December 2011, she held her first presidential meeting in Metz.[150][151] From early January to mid April 2012, she held weekly meetings in the major French cities. On 17 April 2012, between 6,000 and 7,000 people took part in her final meeting organized at the Zenith in Paris.[152][153]
On 13 March 2012, she publicly announced that she had the 500 necessary signatures to take part in the presidential election.[154][155] On 19 March 2012, the Constitutional Council officially validated her candidature and the one of nine others competitors.[8]
On 22 April 2012, she polled 17.90% (6,421,426 votes) in the first round and finished in third position behind François Hollande and incumbent president Nicolas Sarkozy.[9][10][11] Her national result was higher in percentage and votes than those of Jean-Marie Le Pen in the 2002 presidential election (16.86%, 4,804,772 votes in the first round; 17.79%, 5,525,034 votes in the run-off).[156]
Marine Le Pen in her presidential campaign, on 15 April 2012.
First round results : candidates with the most votes by departments (mainland France, overseas and French citizens living abroad). Marine Le Pen came first in Gard.
She was in ahead in Gard (25.51%, 106,646 votes) whereas Sarkozy and Hollande respectively polled 24.86% (103,927 votes) and 24.11% (100,778 votes).[10][157] She came first in her municipal stronghold of Hénin-Beaumont (35.48%, 4,924 votes) whereas Hollande and Sarkozy respectively polled 26,82% (3,723 votes) and 15,76% (2,187 votes).[158] She globally achieved her highest results east of a line from Le Havre in the north to Perpignan in the south.[159] In contrast, she globally polled less in western France, especially big cities such as Paris, overseas and among the French citizens living abroad (5.95%, 23,995 votes).[160] However, she got significative results in two rural departments in western France such as Orne (20.00%, 34,757 votes)[161] and Sarthe (19.17%, 62,516 votes).[162]
She achieved her highest regional result in Picardy (25.03%, 266,041 votes),[163] her highest departmental result in Vaucluse (27.03%, 84,585 votes),[164] her highest overseas result in Saint Pierre and Miquelon (15.81%, 416 votes).[165]
In addition to Picardy, she also polled over 20% in ten other regions: Corsica (24.39%, 39,209 votes),[166] Champagne-Ardenne (23.91%, 172,632 votes),[167] Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur (23.87%, 650,336 votes),[168] Lorraine (23.66%, 308,392 votes),[169] Languedoc-Roussillon (23.45%, 363,880 votes),[170] Nord-Pas-de-Calais (23.29%, 517,115 votes),[171] Alsace (22.12%, 219,252 votes),[172] Franche-Comté (21.29%, 141,972 votes),[173] Burgundy (20.36%, 191,148 votes),[174] Upper Normandy (20.15%, 207,520 votes).[175] In addition to Vaucluse, she also polled over 25% in nine other departments : Aisne (26.33%, 78,452 votes),[176] Meuse (25.82%, 29,038 votes),[177] Corse-du-Sud (25.71%, 19,081 votes),[178] Pas-de-Calais (25.53%, 216,753 votes),[179] Gard (25.51%, 106,646 votes),[157] Haute-Marne (25.26%, 27,624 votes),[180] Aube (25.12%, 40,740 votes),[181] Haute-Saône (25.12%, 36,807 votes),[182] Oise (25.08%, 109,339 votes).[183] In addition to Saint Pierre and Miquelon, she also polled over 10% in the Collectivity of Saint Martin (12.51%, 665 votes),[184] in New Caledonia (11.66%, 10,409 votes),[185] in Saint Barthélemy (11.41%, 310 votes),[186] in French Guiana (10.48%, 3,920 votes)[187] and in Réunion (10.31%, 37,549 votes).[188]
First round results : candidates with the most votes by municipalities in metropolitan France (dark gray : Marine Le Pen)
She achieved her lowest regional result in Île-de-France (12.28%, 655,926 votes),[189] her lowest departmental result in Paris (6.20%, 61,503 votes),[190] her lowest overseas result in Wallis and Futuna (2.37%, 152 votes).[191]
In addition to Île-de-France, she polled less 15% in Brittany (13.24%, 262,095 votes)[192] and in Pays de la Loire (14.39%, 308,806 votes).[193] In addition to Paris, she polled less 10% in Hauts-de-Seine (8.51%, 62,447 votes).[194] In addition to Wallis and Futuna, she polled less 5% in Mayotte (2.77%, 996 votes)[195] and in Martinique (4.76%, 6,960 votes).[196]
A French sociologist, Sylvain Crépon who analysed the social and occupational groups of the FN voters in 2012, explained: "The FN vote is made up of the victims of globalisation. It is the small shopkeepers who are going under because of the economic crisis and competition from the out-of-town hypermarkets; it is low-paid workers from the private sector; the unemployed. The FN scores well among people living in poverty, who have a real fear about how to make ends meet."[159] Crépon also analysed the increase of the FN vote in "rural" areas and the recent sociological changes in these areas made up of small provincial towns and new housing-estate commuter belts built on the distant outskirts of the cities: "The rural underclass is no longer agricultural. It is people who have fled the big cities and the inner suburbs because they can no longer afford to live there. Many of these people will have had recent experience of living in the banlieues (high immigration suburbs) – and have had contact with the problems of insecurity."[159] Commentators also pointed that there are more young people and women voting for the party in 2012.[159]
During a speech delivered in Paris on 1 May 2012 after the traditional Joan of Arc and Labor Day march, she has refused to back either incumbent president Sarkozy or socialist Hollande in the run-off on 6 May. Addressing the party's annual rally at Place de l'Opéra, she vowed to cast a blank ballot and told her supporters to vote with their conscience, saying: "Hollande and Sarkozy – neither of them will save you. On Sunday I will cast a blank protest vote. I have made my choice. Each of you will make yours." Accusing both candidates of surrendering to Europe and financial markets, she asked: "Who between Francois Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy will impose the austerity plan in the most servile way? Who will submit the best to the instructions of the IMF, the ECB or the European Commission?"[197]
Electoral progression: 2012–16
In the wake of her success, she announced the foundation of the "Blue Marine Gathering", an electoral coalition dedicated to the June parliamentary elections. Herself a candidate in the Pas-de-Calais' 11th constituency, she collected 42,36% of the vote, far before the Socialist representative Philippe Kemel (23.50%) and her far-left rival Jean-Luc Mélenchon (21.48%). She was beaten in the second round with 49.86%. She filed an appeal rejected by the constitutional Council which however recognized some proven deceptions. Nationally, her party has only elected two lawmakers: her niece Marion Maréchal-Le Pen and Gilbert Collard.
In 2014, she led her party to other success in the municipal and senatorial elections: eleven mayors and two senators were elected. It was the first time the National Front entered in France's upper chamber.
On 24 May 2014, the National Front won the European election in France with 24.90% of the vote. Marine Le Pen came in first place in her North-West constituency with a score of 33.60%. 25 FN members were sent at the European Parliament of Strasbourg. They voted against the Juncker Commission in July. One year later, she was able to announce the formation of a group composed of the French National Front, the Freedom Party of Austria, the Italian Lega Nord, the Dutch Party for Freedom, the Polish Congress of the New Right, the Flemish Vlaams Belang and former UKIP member Janice Atkinson. Her first attempt to constitute this group in 2014 has failed because of the UKIP refusal and of controversial statements of her father Jean-Marie Le Pen in June. Le Pen sit in the commission for international trade. In 2016, Politico have ranked her second as the most influential MEP after Martin Schulz.
In April 2015, her father provoked a political crisis in the National Front because of two interviews he gave. Some controversial statements include his opinion on World War II and on minorities in France. Marine Le Pen organized a postal vote to ask the FN members to change the statuts of the party in order to expel her father. Le Pen père pursued his movement and the justice canceled the vote. On 25 August, the FN executive Office voted his exclusion from the party he had founded forty years earlier. Many observers have concluded on her dependence toward her closest advisor, Florian Philippot, a former left-wing technocrat. A national purge excluded the members refusing the evolution of the FN under Marine Le Pen's leadership.
She tardily announced her candidacy for the presidency of the regional council of Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie for the 2015 regional elections. She have regretted the proximity with the next presidential election. On 6 December, she arrived first with 40.6% of the vote. But the Socialist candidate (third with 18.12%) has withdrawn and called to vote for her right-wing opponent Xavier Bertrand who won by 57.80% of the vote. Her niece Marion also lost but got a better score than her.
Second presidential candidacy: 2016–17
Main article: French presidential election, 2017
Marine Le Pen’s 2017 campaign logo
Excepting the candidates for the center-right primary, Marine Le Pen was the first to announce her candidacy for the 2017 French presidential election on 8 April 2016. She has consistently maintained high popularity in polling figures: she is predicted to gather between 28% and 30% in the first round, which is close to the figures predicted for front-runner François Fillon. She has appointed David Rachline, a young FN member of the Senate, as her campaign manager. The FN had difficulties finding funding because of the opposition of every French bank to her political platform. This led to the National Front borrowing €9 million from the First Czech-Russian bank in Moscow in 2014, even as the E.U. placed sanctions on Russia for annexing Crimea. In February 2016, the FN asked Russia for another loan, this time in the amount of €27 million. The loan has not materialized.[198]
Most political analysts notice her strong position because of the absence of a primary in her party (consolidating her leadership), of the news such as the migrants crisis or the terrorist attacks in France (reinforcing her political positions) and of the very right-wing campaign of Nicolas Sarkozy in the Republican primary (enlarging her themes). In a 2016 interview with the BBC, Le Pen stated that Donald Trump's presidential victory will in fact help her in the 2016–2017 presidential race. In her opinion, Mr Trump has "made possible what had previously been presented as impossible".[199] However, she stated she would not officially launch her campaign before February 2017, waiting for the results of the Republican and Socialist primaries, and preferred to remain silent in the media and usher thematic think tanks dedicated to the elaboration of her program. In consequence, her rare media appearances attract consistent audiences (2.3 million viewers for Vie politique on TF1 on 11 September 2016 and 4 million for Une ambition intime on M6 on 16 October).
The communication of her party also attracts media attention: a new Mitterrand-inspired poster showing her in a rural landscape with the slogan "Appeased France" is an attempt to respond to surveys indicating she remains somewhat controversial for an important part of the French electorate. But the mockeries sparked by this poster led to a change of slogan: "In the name of the people". Others have noticed the disappearance of the FN logo and of the name Le Pen on the campaign's posters.
She officially launched her candidacy on 4 and 5 February 2017 in Lyon while she is predicted to be the frontrunner with 25% of the votes, explaining the national and international attention she attracted. Le Pen promised a referendum in which the nation would decide whether to withdraw from the European Union if she could not achieve France's territorial, monetary, economical and legislative sovereignties in a six-month renegotiation with the EU. Her first appearance on TV four days later generated the highest viewing figures of France 2 since the previous presidential election (16.70% with 3.7 million telespectators).[200]
On 2 March 2017, the European Parliament voted to revoke Le Pen's immunity from prosecution for tweeting violent imagery. Le Pen had tweeted an image of beheaded journalist James Foley in December 2015. She took down the tweet following a request from Foley's family. In an unrelated case, Le Pen faces prosecution for allegedly spending European Union Parliament funds on her own political party; the lifting of her immunity from prosecution does not apply to the ongoing investigation into the misuse of parliamentary funds by the FN.[201]
Marine Le Pen and Vladimir Putin in Moscow on 24 March 2017
Le Pen has met with several incumbent heads of state including Lebanon's Michel Aoun,[202] Chad's Idriss Déby,[203] and Russia's Vladimir Putin.[204]
The ground floor of the building which housed Le Pen's campaign headquarters was targeted by an arson attempt during the early morning of 13 April.[205][206]
In 2017, Le Pen argued that France as a nation bore no responsibility for the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup, a part of the Holocaust in which Paris policemen arrested Jewish citizens for deportation to Auschwitz. She repeated a gaullist thesis according which France was not represented by the Vichy regime but by General de Gaulle's Free France.[207]
On 20 April 2017, in the wake of a shooting targeting police officers that was treated as a suspected terrorist attack, Le Pen canceled a planned campaign event. The next day, she called for the closure of all mosques, a remark that received criticism from the French Prime Minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, who accused her of attempting to "capitalize" on the incident. She also called for the expulsion of hate preachers and people on the French security services' watch list, and the revocation of their citizenship. The Guardian noted that the attack may serve as "ammunition" for right-wing candidates in the election, such as Le Pen.[208][209]
Political positions
Economy
Marine Le Pen contends that the FN's immigration programme is better known among the voters; she thus concentrates on the party's economic and social programme.[210][211]
On 17 October 2011, in front of the French Dexia headquarters in La Défense, Marine Le Pen holds a press conference about the systemic banking crisis
Opposed to free trade and autarky, she advocates protectionism as a median way. In her view, if one considers the economy to be a raging river, then free trade is like allowing the torrent to rush along unchecked; autarky equates to the erection of a dam whereas protectionism is to install a sluice gate. "Protectionism is not autarky! ... Our position is not extreme – as our opponents would have it believed – but one which favours the middle way".[40]
In 2010, she vigorously criticized the pension plan drawn up by Nicolas Sarkozy and his liberal-conservative government.[212][213]
She paid tribute to the economist Maurice Allais, who died on 9 October 2010.[214] A French laureate of the Nobel Prize in Economics (1988), Allais had expressed concerns about the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, the single European currency, free trade and globalization and the 2004 European Constitution.[215][216]
She favours the repeal of the 1973 Pompidou-Giscard Law, which makes it illegal for France to borrow at zero or a low rate of interest from the Banque de France and forces the country to borrow at higher rate on the international financial markets. In her view, the national debt has grown steeply because of this law. She claimed that in 2010 France had already refunded 1.355 trillion euros of accrued interest on loans at a time when the national debt represented around 1.650 trillion euros.[211][217]
She has expressed support for the French public utilities, the civil servants, and the general public interest.[218][219] She thus opposes the programmed privatization of the French Post Office (La Poste) : in her view, "the privatization, with the aim of only making profitable, will result in the removal of post offices in the rural areas where the relinquishment of the state is already high". In October 2009, she claimed that three post offices had already disappeared each day in France since 1 January 2009.[220][221] She said that the liberalization of the French public utilities had been ratified by the former Prime Minister Lionel Jospin during the Barcelona summit on 15 and 16 March 2002.[222][223] She had also warned that the UMP government planned a "progressive privatization of the French Social Security system from 2011" – a condition imposed by the financial markets.[224]
During a press conference in June 2011, she advocated to reintroduce the Havana Charter and implement an "International Trade Organization" (in place of World Trade Organization), in order to reorganize the world trade exchanges.[225] Signed by 53 countries and rejected by the US in 1951, this Charter was a trade agreement that would have established an international currency known as the bancor.[226] She claimed that the "Havana Charters's proposals perfectly fit into her economic philosophy"[225] and that "its first article conciliates international trade and employment".[227]
During her speech at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. in November 2011, she proposed "three essential solutions to stop the current world systemic crisis and turn the world towards a greater justice and greater prosperity": reintroduction of a "polymetallic standard" in the International monetary systems as a world standard of reference and exchanges in order to establish a "free monetary system" and struggle against speculation; the ratification of the modernized Havana Charter by the 1948 signatory nations and incoming emerging countries, in order to favour a "reasonable protectionism that encourages cooperation in trade among nations through the end of 'unbridled free trade'"; application of the 1933 Glass–Steagall Act, which legally separated investment banking and commercial banking, to "the banking system of each country".[226][227] In her view, these solutions will be able to bring a global support for employment thanks to the integration of "full employment" appearing as one of the main targets of the Havana Charter and for industry thanks to the authorization of state aids appearing in the Charter's article 13.[227]
In October 2011, she advocated to implement a drastic regulation of the banking sector separating by law the deposit banks from the merchant banks. She claimed that "the deposit banks should be rescued by a temporary and partial nationalization". In her view, "the balance sheet of the banks should be the object of a transparency operation".[228]
In October 2011, she suggested 7 measures to save €30 billion per year in order to preserve France's AAA credit rating.[229] The largest part of the measures are made up of avoiding fraud on welfare payments and avoidance of tax loopholes (together €18.5 bn), stopping non-useful local spending (€4bn) as well as stopping payments of France to the EU (€7bn).
A president of the Mouvement des Entreprises de France (MEDEF), Laurence Parisot regularly levels strong criticism at the FN's economic and social programme.[230] She replied that "the FN is not the friend of the CAC 40 and is fighting the social regression brought about by the MEDEF and inflicted on the French people by the allies of the UMP and the PS".[231] After Parisot's new criticism, she claims that "the philosophy of the FN's economic project comes down to some words: construction of a strong, protective and strategist state, reasoned protections at the boundaries, support to the small and medium enterprises, and get back the monetary sovereignty, only able to assure France's recovery".[232] She also replied that "Laurence Parisot, this is the exact opposite of her democratic and republican project, a project of hope which puts back man and nation in the center of politics".[233] After the publication of Parisot's critical book relating to the FN economic project, she suggested a "direct and public debate" with the president of the MEDEF.[234]
Agriculture and environment
In her view, "the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) after 2013 will be unable to protect our farmers from speculators and savage global competition, or to compensate for the excesses of the multinationals of the food processing industry and large-scale distributors. The CAP after 2013 will remain wedged between the ultraliberal and internationalist market logic of the European Commission and a future ‘green’ CAP, in reality serving the neo-capitalists of ecological business".[235]
During her first visit at the Paris International Agricultural Show on 25 February 2011,[236] Marine Le Pen denounced the CAP as an "unbearable bureaucracy" and advocated to replace it with a "French agricultural policy". She also claimed that "leaving the EU, we could allocate 15 billions of euros to our agriculture".[237][238][239]
She claims that 'internationalist organisations' such as the EU, FAO, United Nations and G-20 are directly responsible for the food crises throughout the world. She advocates France's food independence with regard to multinationals[240] and "a realignment of the farm aid politics to the third countries in order to favour their food sovereignty in particular by the reintroduction of localized food crops".[241]
She advocates the implementation of the "autarky of big spaces" and an "economy in concentric circles". In her view, it is an "ecological heresy to consume products grown at 20,000 km away and recycle waste thousands km further". She claims that we should "produce to the closest", "distribute on the spot", "consume as a priority products of its region" and then "in the nearby region" if not produced on the spot. She seeks to implement "contracts of cooperation" if necessary goods like coffee are not produced in Europe.[242]
Energy and transport
On 19 October 2011, Marine Le Pen in Milipol
Marine Le Pen regularly denounces sharp rises in energy prices[243][244] (gas,[245] gasoline,[246][247][248] electricity[249]) which has "harmful consequences on the purchasing power of the working and middle-class families".[246][247][248] In her view, this rise mainly stems from the European liberalization of the energy sector, jointly implemented by right wing and socialist governments since 1996.[243][245][249]
She advocates an immediate reduction of 20% of the domestic tax on oil products (TIPP), a surcharge of fantastic profits of the largest gas and oil companies and a struggle against international speculation on basic products such as food and energy.[243][244][246][247][248] She considers that "a strong state has authority to be the guarantor of public utilities, being the exclusive owner of the strategic companies of public utility and the regulator of tariffs".[245]
After a fatal event occurred on 12 September 2011 in the Centraco nuclear installation located on the Marcoule Nuclear Site, she claimed that "this accident illustrated the dangerousness of this energy and the necessity to consider a progressive and well-thought-out exit from nuclear power". In her view, "the State must secure the 58 French nuclear power plants and invest in researches to process nuclear waste". She advocates to "start the energy diversification of France, in particular with an ambitious programme of research into hydrogen".[250]
She favours accompanied combined transport (ferroutage) and public transport.[242]
Taxation
Marine Le Pen denounces the current corporate tax as "a crying injustice". She claims that the main groups of CAC 40 only pay 8% of corporate tax whereas the small offices/home offices, the small and medium enterprises, the craftsmen and the shopkeepers fully pay 33.33%. She advocates to implement a flexible corporate tax according to the use of profits: heavier when the profits benefit the shareholders and lighter when the profits turn towards profit sharing, salaries, employment and productive investment, enabling a relocation of activities.[251]
European Union and globalization
Le Pen with Volen Siderov
Le Pen joined the National Front in 1986 and was elected as a regional councillor (1998–present), a Member of European Parliament (2004–present), and a municipal councillor in Hénin-Beaumont (2008–2011). She won the leadership of the FN in 2011 with 67.65% (11,546 votes) of the vote, defeating Bruno Gollnisch and succeeding her father who had been president of the party since he founded it in 1972.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7] In 2012, she placed third in the presidential election with 17.90% of the vote, behind François Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy.[8][9][10][11] She launched a second presidential bid for the upcoming election, scheduled for April 2017.
Described as more democratic and republican than her nationalist father, Le Pen has led a movement of "de-demonization of the Front National" to detoxify and soften its image, based on renovated positions and renewed teams, also expelling controversial members accused of racism, antisemitism, or pétainism. She expelled her father from the party on 20 August 2015 after new controversial statements.[12][13]
She has also relaxed some political positions of the party, advocating for civil unions for same-sex couples instead of her party's previous opposition to legal recognition of same-sex partnerships, accepting unconditional abortion and withdrawing the death penalty from her platform.[14][15][16][17]
Le Pen was ranked among the most influential people in 2011 and 2015 by the Time 100.[18][19] In 2016, she was ranked as second-most influential MEP in the European Parliament by Politico, just behind the President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz.[20]
Contents
1 Early life
1.1 Childhood
1.2 Legal studies and work
1.3 Private life
2 Early political career
2.1 First steps and rise within National Front: 1986–2010
2.2 Internal campaign for the FN leadership: 2010–11
2.2.1 Controversy
3 Media rise (2002–2011)
3.1 National media
3.2 International media
4 President of the FN
4.1 De-demonization of the FN
4.2 First steps as a new leader: 2011
4.3 First presidential candidacy: 2011–12
4.4 Electoral progression: 2012–16
4.5 Second presidential candidacy: 2016–17
5 Political positions
5.1 Economy
5.1.1 Agriculture and environment
5.1.2 Energy and transport
5.1.3 Taxation
5.2 European Union and globalization
5.2.1 Euro and eurozone
5.2.2 Geopolitics and intergovernmental organizations
5.3 Immigration
5.3.1 Illegal immigration
5.3.2 Legal immigration
5.3.3 Citizenship and nationality
5.3.4 Communitarianism and secularism
5.4 Social issues
5.5 National politics and overseas
5.5.1 Mayotte
5.5.2 New Caledonia
5.6 International politics
5.6.1 Europe
5.6.1.1 Russia and Ukraine
5.6.2 North Africa, Middle East and Asia
5.6.3 Africa
6 Elections (1993–2012)
6.1 European elections
6.1.1 North-West France in 2009
6.1.2 Île-de-France in 2004
6.2 Parliamentary elections
6.2.1 Paris in 1993
6.2.2 Lens in 2002
6.2.3 Hénin-Beaumont in 2007
6.2.4 Hénin-Beaumont in 2012
6.2.4.1 Convicted for fraud
6.3 Regional elections
6.3.1 Nord-Pas-de-Calais in 2010
6.3.2 Île-de-France in 2004
6.3.3 Nord-Pas-de-Calais in 1998
6.4 Municipal elections
6.4.1 Hénin-Beaumont in 2008
6.4.2 2009 Hénin-Beaumont by-election
7 Political mandates
7.1 Local mandates
7.2 European mandates
8 Bibliography
9 References
10 External links
Early life
Childhood
Marion Anne Perrine Le Pen was born on 5 August 1968[21] in Neuilly-sur-Seine. She is the youngest of the three daughters of Jean-Marie Le Pen, a Breton politician and a former paratrooper, with his first wife Pierrette Lalanne. She was baptized 25 April 1969, at La Madeleine by Father Pohpot. Her godfather was Henri Botey, a relative of her father.
She has two sisters: Yann and Marie Caroline. In 1976, Marine survived a bomb attack on the family as they slept in their beds.[22] She was eight when a bomb meant for her father exploded in the stairwell outside the family's apartment. The blast ripped a hole into the outside wall of the building. Marine, her two older sisters and their parents were unharmed.[23]
She was a student at the lycée Florent Schmitt at Saint-Cloud. Her parents divorced in 1987.[24][25]
Legal studies and work
Question book-new.svg
This section relies largely or entirely upon a single source. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please help improve this article by introducing citations to additional sources. (February 2017)
Le Pen studied law at Panthéon-Assas University, graduating with a Master of Laws in 1991 and a Master of Advanced Studies (DEA) in criminal law in 1992.[26] Registered at the Paris bar association, she worked as a lawyer for six years (1992–1998).[26] In France - as in many other countries - when a defendant cannot afford a lawyer, one is chosen to represent them. She often fulfilled this role.
In 1992, she received the certificate as a lawyer (CAPA) and became a lawyer practising in Paris. She then argued regularly before the criminal chamber of the 23rd District Court of Paris which judges immediate appearances. She was a member of the Bar of Paris until 1998, when she joined the legal department of the National Front.
Private life
Le Pen was raised Roman Catholic.[27] She was married in 1995 to Franck Chauffroy, a business executive who worked for the National Front. By Chauffroy, she has three children (Jehanne, Louis, and Mathilde).[24] After her divorce from Chauffroy in 2000, she married Eric Lorio in 2002, the former national secretary of the National Front and a former adviser to the Regional election in Nord-Pas de Calais, whom she divorced in 2006.
Since 2009, she has been in a relationship with Louis Aliot. He was the National Front General Secretary from 2005 to 2010, then the National Front vice president who was in charge of the Project.[28] She spends most of her time in Saint-Cloud, and has resided in La Celle-Saint-Cloud with her three children since September 2014. She has an apartment in Hénin-Beaumont. In 2010, she also bought a house with Aliot in Millas.[29]
Early political career
First steps and rise within National Front: 1986–2010
In 1986, at the age of 18, Marine Le Pen joined the FN. In 2000, she became president of Generations Le Pen, a loose association close to the party aimed at "de-demonizing the Front National".[24] In 1998, she joined the FN's juridical branch, which she led until 2003.
In 2000, she joined the FN Executive Committee (bureau politique). In 2003, she became vice-president of the FN.[24] In 2006, Jean-Marie Le Pen entrusted her with the management of his 2007 presidential campaign. In 2007, she became one of the two executive vice-presidents of the FN and was in charge of training, communication and publicity.[26]
In 1998, she acquired her first political mandate when she was elected regional councillor in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais. From 2002, she began to establish her parliamentary base in the former coal mining area of the Pas-de-Calais.[24]
Her aim is to expand the political influence of the FN and transform it into a "big popular party that addresses itself not only to the electorate on the right but to all the French people".[3] She has frequently stated that she rules out any political alliance with the Union for a Popular Movement.[30][31]
She has at numerous times distanced herself from some of Jean-Marie Le Pen's controversial statements,[32] notably those relating to war-crimes, which the media point to her attempts to improve the party's image. While her father has provoked a long-time controversy by saying that the gas chambers were "a detail of the history of World War II", she said it has been "the height of barbarism".[33][34]
Internal campaign for the FN leadership: 2010–11
Her candidacy was endorsed by an overwhelming majority of senior executives[35] and notably by Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of the FN.[36][37]
She spent four months campaigning for the FN leadership, holding meetings with FN members in 51 departments to explain in detail her political views and projects for the party.[38] All the other departments were visited by one of her official supporters.[35]
On 3 September 2010, she launched her internal campaign at Cuers, Var.[39] During a meeting in Paris on 14 November 2010, she claimed: "My project is not to assemble our political family, or rather is not only to assemble our political family. It consists of shaping the Front National as the center of grouping of the whole French people". She also explained why the FN leadership and the candidature for the presidential election must not be dissociated: thus the next FN leader will run in the 2012 presidential election.[40] During her final meeting at Hénin-Beaumont on 19 December 2010, she claimed that the FN presents the real debates of the next presidential campaign.[41][42] Most of her campaign tours throughout France were reported in local newspapers and regional television programmes.
In December 2010 and early January 2011, FN members voted by post to elect their new president and the hundred members of the Central Committee. The party held its congress at Tours for two days (15–16 January 2011).[43] On 16 January 2011, Marine Le Pen was officially elected with 67.65% (11,546 votes) as the new president of the Front National[26][44] and Jean-Marie Le Pen became de facto its honorary chairman. Her challenger Bruno Gollnisch polled 32.35% (5,522 votes).
Controversy
Marine Le Pen stirred up controversy during the internal campaign. During a speech to the party faithful in Lyon on 10 December 2010, she said that the weekly illegal blocking of public streets and squares in multiple French cities (notably the rue Myrha in the 18th arrondissement of Paris) for Muslim prayers was comparable with an occupation of parts of French territory. Specifically, Le Pen said:
For those who want to talk a lot about World War II, if it's about occupation, then we could also talk about it (Muslim prayers in the streets), because that is occupation of territory. ... It is an occupation of sections of the territory, of districts in which religious laws apply. ... There are of course no tanks, there are no soldiers, but it is nevertheless an occupation and it weighs heavily on local residents.[45]
The mention of World War II brought claims from the media and politicians that she had drawn an irresponsible parallel with the Nazi occupation of France (May 1940 – December 1944).[46] Nearly the entire political and media class strongly criticised her statement, which was widely commented on by different political analysts.[47][48][49][50][51][52] Whereas the CRIF,[53] the French Council of Muslim Faith (CFCM)[54] and the LICRA[55] denounced her statement, other groups like the MRAP[56] and the LDH[57] declared their intention of lodging a formal complaint. The imam of the Great Mosque of Paris and former president of the CFCM, Dalil Boubakeur, claimed that though her parallel was questionable and condemnable, she had asked a valid question.[58]
A member of the FN's Executive Committee, Louis Aliot, denounced "the attempted manipulation of opinion by communitarian groups and those really responsible for the current situation in France".[59] On 13 December 2010, she confirmed her statement during a press conference held in the FN's headquarters in Nanterre.[60][61][62] After Jean-François Kahn's comments on BFM TV on 13 December 2010, she denounced "state manipulation" mounted from the Elysée with the intention of demonizing her in public opinion.[63][64]
On 15 December 2015, the Lyon court acquitted her of "inciting hatred", considering that her statement "did not target all of the Muslim community" and was protected "as a part of freedom of expression".[65]
Media rise (2002–2011)
National media
Marine Le Pen on 22 April 2005
Her various appearances on television and radio have played an important role in her political rise at national and local levels. Her political personality regularly attracts the attention of the French media[66][67][68][69][70] as well as the European,[25][71][72][73][74] the Middle Eastern[75][76] and the US press.[77][78][79]
On 5 May 2002, after the run-off in the 2002 presidential election, she took part in a televised debate on France 3. Political analysts compared her appearance to a "media baptism" and claim that her political emergence has its roots in this debate.
During the programme Mots croisés (Crossed Words) on France 2 on 5 October 2009,[80] Marine Le Pen quoted sections of Frédéric Mitterrand's autobiographical novel The Bad Life, accusing him of having sex with underage boys and engaging in "sex tourism", demanding his resignation as a Minister of Culture.[81][82][83][84] According to French political commentator Jérôme Fourquet, during the Mitterrand case she broke through and gained a media ascendancy over the party.[85]
Hosted on France 2 by journalist and commentator Arlette Chabot, À vous de juger (You Be The Judge) was one of France's foremost political programmes. For her first appearance as a guest debater on 14 January 2010, Marine Le Pen opposed Éric Besson, then Minister of Immigration, Integration, National Identity and Mutually Supportive Development.[86]
Marine Le Pen in 2008
For her first appearance as a main guest on 9 December 2010, she was successively questioned on economic, societal and immigration matters by Arlette Chabot and political commentator Alain Duhamel, then debated with the socialist mayor of Évry Manuel Valls and finally was matched against Rachida Dati, former Minister of Justice.[87] Her appearance attracted 3,356,000 viewers (14.6% of the televised audience),[88] which represented the highest viewing figures for 2010 and the fourth best since the start of the series in September 2005.[89]
In December 2010, French journalist Guillaume Tabard described her as the "revelation of the year". He further described her as "first an electoral phenomenon" and "a media phenomenon after".[90]
Hosted on France 2 by journalist and anchorman David Pujadas, Des paroles et des actes (Words and Acts) replaced À vous de juger. For her first appearance as a main guest on 23 June 2011, Le Pen opposed Cécile Duflot, national secretary of the Greens.[91][92] Her appearance attracted 3,582,000 viewers which represented 15.1% of the televised audience.[93][94]
Hosted on TF1 by anchorwoman Laurence Ferrari and political commentator François Bachy, Parole directe (Direct Speech) is one of France's foremost political programmes. For her first appearance as a sole guest on 15 September 2011, Le Pen attracted an average of 6 million viewers (23.3% of the televised audience) with a peak of 7.3 million in the second half of the programme.[95][96]
International media
At an international level, she was invited by the Quebec web-radio Rockik in December 2008,[97] the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (Radio Canada) in May 2010[98] and the Israeli radio 90FM in March 2011.[99] In March 2011, she appeared on the front cover page of The Weekly Standard magazine with the heading "The Future of the European Right?".[100] During a press conference organized on 13 January 2012 by the European American Press Club, she spoke in front of international journalists about various topical and thematic issues.[101]
On 4 April 2011, she appeared for the first time as a candidate in the 2011 Time 100 Poll.[102] On 21 April, she was listed in the 2011 Time 100.[18] Vladimir Zhirinovsky, leader of the far-right Liberal Democratic Party of Russia and vice chairman of the State Duma, wrote a commentary about her political destiny.[103]
In October 2011, she presented her book in Verona, Italy and met Assunta Almirante, the widow of the far-right MSI leader Giorgio Almirante.[104] The logo of the Front National was inspired by MSI logo.
In February 2013, she spoke at the Cambridge Union Society, the University of Cambridge's debating society. Her appearance sparked controversy, with anti-fascist group Unite Against Fascism opposing her invitation on a No Platform basis and organising a demonstration of about 200 people outside the venue.[105][106] The protests were supported by numerous Cambridge societies, including Cambridge University Students' Union and Cambridge Universities Labour Club, however others, notably the Cambridge Libertarians,[107] supported her right to freedom of expression.
President of the FN
De-demonization of the FN
From a general point of view, Marine Le Pen is often judged more moderate than her father. A part of the French electorate considers her positions more nuanced, polished and detoxified than Jean-Marie Le Pen's "provocations". Her smiling, calm image contrasts with much of the stereotypes generally attributed to her political family.[108] At the beginning of her media rise, she often talked about her particular treatment as the daughter of "Le Pen" and of the 1976 attack (then the biggest bomb explosion in France since World War II).[108][109] It has been seen as a way to humanize her party.[108][110]
Marine Le Pen in the traditional Jeanne d'Arc march, 3 May 2007
For example, Bernard-Henri Lévy, a strong opponent of the FN, talked about "a far-right with a human face".[111] Journalist Michèle Cotta claims that the fact she is a young woman condemning racism and refusing her father's "faults" (notably his enjoyment of shocking other people) contributed to her strategy of de-demonization of the National Front.[112] References to World War II or to the French colonial wars are absent from her speeches, which is often looked on as a generation gap.[113] She distanced herself from her father on the gas chambers he famously called "a detail in the history of World War II", saying that she "didn't share the same vision of these events".[114] L'Express wrote that the exclusion of Jean-Marie Le Pen in 2015 was the completion of her endeavour. The opponents of the FN denounce a more dangerous strategy because of its evident success.[115]
In a 2010 RTL interview, Le Pen stated that her strategy was not about changing the FN's program but about showing it as it really is, instead of the image given to it by the media in the previous decades. The media and her political adversaries are accused of spreading an "unfair, wrong and caricatural" image of the National Front. She refuses the qualification of far-right or extreme-right, considering it a "perjorative" term : "How am I party of the extreme right? ... I don't think that our propositions are extreme propositions, whatever the subject".[116] However, the radical far-right (e.g., Minute, Rivarol, Patrick Buisson, Henry de Lesquen) reproached her for abandoning or softening her stance on immigration, gay marriage and abortion. In her speech in Lyon on 10 December 2010, she mentioned the fate of gays living in difficult neighbourhoods, victims of religious laws replacing the republican law.[117][118][119]
In 2014, the American magazine Foreign Policy mentioned her, along with four other Frenchmen, in its list of the 100 global thinkers of the year, underlining the way she "renovated the image" of her party, which had became a model for other right-wing parties in Europe after her success in the European elections.[120] At a European level, she stopped the alliance built by her father with some right-wing extremist parties and refused to be part of a group with the radical Jobbik or the neo-nazi Golden dawn. Her transnational allies share the fact that they have officially condemned antisemitism, accepted a more liberal approach toward social matters and to be sometimes pro-Israel such as the Dutch PVV. French historian Nicolas Lebourg concluded she is looked upon as a compass for them in order to copy while maintaining local particularities.[121][122]
For a long time, she has been reluctant to endorse Donald Trump, while other European populists have already embraced his candidacy, and only supported him by saying: "For France, anything is better than Hillary Clinton". However, on 8 November 2016 she posted a tweet congratulating Trump on his presidential victory.[123] Nevertheless, her strategy has difficulties as her image seems to remain controversial: Germany's Angela Merkel has said she will "I will contribute to make other political forces be stronger than the National Front" and Israel still holds a bad opinion of her party.[124][125] Nigel Farage has said : "I've never said a bad word about Marine Le Pen; I've never said a good word about her party".[126]
Her social program and her support of SYRIZA in the 2015 Greek general elections have led Nicolas Sarkozy to declare her a far-left politician sharing some of Jean-Luc Mélenchon's propositions. President François Hollande said she was talking "like a leaflet of the Communist Party". Eric Zemmour, journalist for the conservative newspaper Le Figaro, wrote during the 2012 presidential election that the FN had become a left-wing party under the influence of Florian Philippot. She has also relaxed some political positions of the party, advocating for civil unions for same-sex couples instead of her party's previous opposition to legal recognition of same-sex partnerships, accepting unconditional abortion and withdrawing the death penalty from her platform.[127][128][14][15][16][17]
First steps as a new leader: 2011
As a president of the Front National, Marine Le Pen currently sits as an ex officio member among the FN Executive Office (8 members),[129] the Executive Committee (42 members)[130] and the Central Committee (3 ex officio members, 100 elected members, 20 co-opted members).[131]
During her opening speech in Tours on 16 January 2011, she advocated to "restore the political framework of the national community" and to implement the direct democracy which enables the "civic responsibility and the collective tie" thanks to the participation of public-spirited citizens for the decisions. The predominant political theme was the uncompromising defence of a protective and efficient State, which favours secularism, prosperity and liberties. She also denounced the "Europe of Brussels" which "everywhere imposed the destructive principles of ultra-liberalism and free trade, at the expense of public utilities, employment, social equity and even our economic growth which became within twenty years the weakest of the world".[132]
After the traditional Joan of Arc and Labor Day march in Paris on 1 May 2011, she gave her first speech in front of 3000 supporters.[133][134] On 11 August 2011, she held an exceptional press conference about the current systemic crisis.[135]
On 10 and 11 September 2011, she made her political comeback with the title "the voice of people, the spirit of France" in the convention center of Acropolis in Nice.[136] During her closing speech on 11 September 2011, she tackled the audience about immigration, insecurity, the economic and social situation, reindustrialization and 'strong state'.[137]
During a demonstration held in front of the Senate on 8 December 2011, she expressed during a speech her "firm and absolute opposition" to the right of foreigners to vote.[138]
She regularly holds thematic press conferences[139] and interventions[140] on varied issues in French, European and international politics.
First presidential candidacy: 2011–12
Main articles: French presidential election, 2012 and Marine Le Pen presidential campaign, 2012
Marine Le Pen sings "La Marseillaise" at the conclusion of the presentation of her presidential project held in Paris on 19 November 2011.
Marine Le Pen present her presidential project on 19 November 2011 in Paris.
Marine Le Pen stood in the 2012 French presidential election. On 16 May 2011, her presidential candidacy was unanimously validated by the FN Executive Committee.[141] On 10 and 11 September 2011, her political comeback in Nice prefigured the launching of her presidential campaign.[137] During a press conference on 6 October 2011, she officially unveiled the line-up of her presidential campaign team.[142]
On 19 November 2011, she presented in Paris the main thematic issues of her presidential project: sovereign people and democracy, Europe, reindustrialization and strong state, family and education, immigration and assimilation versus communitarianism, geopolitics and international politics.[143][144][145] During a press conference held on 12 January 2012,[146] she presented in detail the assessment of her presidential project[147] and a plan of debt paydown of France.[148] During a press conference held on 1 February 2012, she presented an outline of her presidential project for the overseas departments and territories of France.[149] Many observers have notice her tendance to enhance economical and social subjects such as globalization and delocalisations, instead of immigration or law and order which have been the paramount platform of the FN in the previous decades.
On 11 December 2011, she held her first presidential meeting in Metz.[150][151] From early January to mid April 2012, she held weekly meetings in the major French cities. On 17 April 2012, between 6,000 and 7,000 people took part in her final meeting organized at the Zenith in Paris.[152][153]
On 13 March 2012, she publicly announced that she had the 500 necessary signatures to take part in the presidential election.[154][155] On 19 March 2012, the Constitutional Council officially validated her candidature and the one of nine others competitors.[8]
On 22 April 2012, she polled 17.90% (6,421,426 votes) in the first round and finished in third position behind François Hollande and incumbent president Nicolas Sarkozy.[9][10][11] Her national result was higher in percentage and votes than those of Jean-Marie Le Pen in the 2002 presidential election (16.86%, 4,804,772 votes in the first round; 17.79%, 5,525,034 votes in the run-off).[156]
Marine Le Pen in her presidential campaign, on 15 April 2012.
First round results : candidates with the most votes by departments (mainland France, overseas and French citizens living abroad). Marine Le Pen came first in Gard.
She was in ahead in Gard (25.51%, 106,646 votes) whereas Sarkozy and Hollande respectively polled 24.86% (103,927 votes) and 24.11% (100,778 votes).[10][157] She came first in her municipal stronghold of Hénin-Beaumont (35.48%, 4,924 votes) whereas Hollande and Sarkozy respectively polled 26,82% (3,723 votes) and 15,76% (2,187 votes).[158] She globally achieved her highest results east of a line from Le Havre in the north to Perpignan in the south.[159] In contrast, she globally polled less in western France, especially big cities such as Paris, overseas and among the French citizens living abroad (5.95%, 23,995 votes).[160] However, she got significative results in two rural departments in western France such as Orne (20.00%, 34,757 votes)[161] and Sarthe (19.17%, 62,516 votes).[162]
She achieved her highest regional result in Picardy (25.03%, 266,041 votes),[163] her highest departmental result in Vaucluse (27.03%, 84,585 votes),[164] her highest overseas result in Saint Pierre and Miquelon (15.81%, 416 votes).[165]
In addition to Picardy, she also polled over 20% in ten other regions: Corsica (24.39%, 39,209 votes),[166] Champagne-Ardenne (23.91%, 172,632 votes),[167] Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur (23.87%, 650,336 votes),[168] Lorraine (23.66%, 308,392 votes),[169] Languedoc-Roussillon (23.45%, 363,880 votes),[170] Nord-Pas-de-Calais (23.29%, 517,115 votes),[171] Alsace (22.12%, 219,252 votes),[172] Franche-Comté (21.29%, 141,972 votes),[173] Burgundy (20.36%, 191,148 votes),[174] Upper Normandy (20.15%, 207,520 votes).[175] In addition to Vaucluse, she also polled over 25% in nine other departments : Aisne (26.33%, 78,452 votes),[176] Meuse (25.82%, 29,038 votes),[177] Corse-du-Sud (25.71%, 19,081 votes),[178] Pas-de-Calais (25.53%, 216,753 votes),[179] Gard (25.51%, 106,646 votes),[157] Haute-Marne (25.26%, 27,624 votes),[180] Aube (25.12%, 40,740 votes),[181] Haute-Saône (25.12%, 36,807 votes),[182] Oise (25.08%, 109,339 votes).[183] In addition to Saint Pierre and Miquelon, she also polled over 10% in the Collectivity of Saint Martin (12.51%, 665 votes),[184] in New Caledonia (11.66%, 10,409 votes),[185] in Saint Barthélemy (11.41%, 310 votes),[186] in French Guiana (10.48%, 3,920 votes)[187] and in Réunion (10.31%, 37,549 votes).[188]
First round results : candidates with the most votes by municipalities in metropolitan France (dark gray : Marine Le Pen)
She achieved her lowest regional result in Île-de-France (12.28%, 655,926 votes),[189] her lowest departmental result in Paris (6.20%, 61,503 votes),[190] her lowest overseas result in Wallis and Futuna (2.37%, 152 votes).[191]
In addition to Île-de-France, she polled less 15% in Brittany (13.24%, 262,095 votes)[192] and in Pays de la Loire (14.39%, 308,806 votes).[193] In addition to Paris, she polled less 10% in Hauts-de-Seine (8.51%, 62,447 votes).[194] In addition to Wallis and Futuna, she polled less 5% in Mayotte (2.77%, 996 votes)[195] and in Martinique (4.76%, 6,960 votes).[196]
A French sociologist, Sylvain Crépon who analysed the social and occupational groups of the FN voters in 2012, explained: "The FN vote is made up of the victims of globalisation. It is the small shopkeepers who are going under because of the economic crisis and competition from the out-of-town hypermarkets; it is low-paid workers from the private sector; the unemployed. The FN scores well among people living in poverty, who have a real fear about how to make ends meet."[159] Crépon also analysed the increase of the FN vote in "rural" areas and the recent sociological changes in these areas made up of small provincial towns and new housing-estate commuter belts built on the distant outskirts of the cities: "The rural underclass is no longer agricultural. It is people who have fled the big cities and the inner suburbs because they can no longer afford to live there. Many of these people will have had recent experience of living in the banlieues (high immigration suburbs) – and have had contact with the problems of insecurity."[159] Commentators also pointed that there are more young people and women voting for the party in 2012.[159]
During a speech delivered in Paris on 1 May 2012 after the traditional Joan of Arc and Labor Day march, she has refused to back either incumbent president Sarkozy or socialist Hollande in the run-off on 6 May. Addressing the party's annual rally at Place de l'Opéra, she vowed to cast a blank ballot and told her supporters to vote with their conscience, saying: "Hollande and Sarkozy – neither of them will save you. On Sunday I will cast a blank protest vote. I have made my choice. Each of you will make yours." Accusing both candidates of surrendering to Europe and financial markets, she asked: "Who between Francois Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy will impose the austerity plan in the most servile way? Who will submit the best to the instructions of the IMF, the ECB or the European Commission?"[197]
Electoral progression: 2012–16
In the wake of her success, she announced the foundation of the "Blue Marine Gathering", an electoral coalition dedicated to the June parliamentary elections. Herself a candidate in the Pas-de-Calais' 11th constituency, she collected 42,36% of the vote, far before the Socialist representative Philippe Kemel (23.50%) and her far-left rival Jean-Luc Mélenchon (21.48%). She was beaten in the second round with 49.86%. She filed an appeal rejected by the constitutional Council which however recognized some proven deceptions. Nationally, her party has only elected two lawmakers: her niece Marion Maréchal-Le Pen and Gilbert Collard.
In 2014, she led her party to other success in the municipal and senatorial elections: eleven mayors and two senators were elected. It was the first time the National Front entered in France's upper chamber.
On 24 May 2014, the National Front won the European election in France with 24.90% of the vote. Marine Le Pen came in first place in her North-West constituency with a score of 33.60%. 25 FN members were sent at the European Parliament of Strasbourg. They voted against the Juncker Commission in July. One year later, she was able to announce the formation of a group composed of the French National Front, the Freedom Party of Austria, the Italian Lega Nord, the Dutch Party for Freedom, the Polish Congress of the New Right, the Flemish Vlaams Belang and former UKIP member Janice Atkinson. Her first attempt to constitute this group in 2014 has failed because of the UKIP refusal and of controversial statements of her father Jean-Marie Le Pen in June. Le Pen sit in the commission for international trade. In 2016, Politico have ranked her second as the most influential MEP after Martin Schulz.
In April 2015, her father provoked a political crisis in the National Front because of two interviews he gave. Some controversial statements include his opinion on World War II and on minorities in France. Marine Le Pen organized a postal vote to ask the FN members to change the statuts of the party in order to expel her father. Le Pen père pursued his movement and the justice canceled the vote. On 25 August, the FN executive Office voted his exclusion from the party he had founded forty years earlier. Many observers have concluded on her dependence toward her closest advisor, Florian Philippot, a former left-wing technocrat. A national purge excluded the members refusing the evolution of the FN under Marine Le Pen's leadership.
She tardily announced her candidacy for the presidency of the regional council of Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie for the 2015 regional elections. She have regretted the proximity with the next presidential election. On 6 December, she arrived first with 40.6% of the vote. But the Socialist candidate (third with 18.12%) has withdrawn and called to vote for her right-wing opponent Xavier Bertrand who won by 57.80% of the vote. Her niece Marion also lost but got a better score than her.
Second presidential candidacy: 2016–17
Main article: French presidential election, 2017
Marine Le Pen’s 2017 campaign logo
Excepting the candidates for the center-right primary, Marine Le Pen was the first to announce her candidacy for the 2017 French presidential election on 8 April 2016. She has consistently maintained high popularity in polling figures: she is predicted to gather between 28% and 30% in the first round, which is close to the figures predicted for front-runner François Fillon. She has appointed David Rachline, a young FN member of the Senate, as her campaign manager. The FN had difficulties finding funding because of the opposition of every French bank to her political platform. This led to the National Front borrowing €9 million from the First Czech-Russian bank in Moscow in 2014, even as the E.U. placed sanctions on Russia for annexing Crimea. In February 2016, the FN asked Russia for another loan, this time in the amount of €27 million. The loan has not materialized.[198]
Most political analysts notice her strong position because of the absence of a primary in her party (consolidating her leadership), of the news such as the migrants crisis or the terrorist attacks in France (reinforcing her political positions) and of the very right-wing campaign of Nicolas Sarkozy in the Republican primary (enlarging her themes). In a 2016 interview with the BBC, Le Pen stated that Donald Trump's presidential victory will in fact help her in the 2016–2017 presidential race. In her opinion, Mr Trump has "made possible what had previously been presented as impossible".[199] However, she stated she would not officially launch her campaign before February 2017, waiting for the results of the Republican and Socialist primaries, and preferred to remain silent in the media and usher thematic think tanks dedicated to the elaboration of her program. In consequence, her rare media appearances attract consistent audiences (2.3 million viewers for Vie politique on TF1 on 11 September 2016 and 4 million for Une ambition intime on M6 on 16 October).
The communication of her party also attracts media attention: a new Mitterrand-inspired poster showing her in a rural landscape with the slogan "Appeased France" is an attempt to respond to surveys indicating she remains somewhat controversial for an important part of the French electorate. But the mockeries sparked by this poster led to a change of slogan: "In the name of the people". Others have noticed the disappearance of the FN logo and of the name Le Pen on the campaign's posters.
She officially launched her candidacy on 4 and 5 February 2017 in Lyon while she is predicted to be the frontrunner with 25% of the votes, explaining the national and international attention she attracted. Le Pen promised a referendum in which the nation would decide whether to withdraw from the European Union if she could not achieve France's territorial, monetary, economical and legislative sovereignties in a six-month renegotiation with the EU. Her first appearance on TV four days later generated the highest viewing figures of France 2 since the previous presidential election (16.70% with 3.7 million telespectators).[200]
On 2 March 2017, the European Parliament voted to revoke Le Pen's immunity from prosecution for tweeting violent imagery. Le Pen had tweeted an image of beheaded journalist James Foley in December 2015. She took down the tweet following a request from Foley's family. In an unrelated case, Le Pen faces prosecution for allegedly spending European Union Parliament funds on her own political party; the lifting of her immunity from prosecution does not apply to the ongoing investigation into the misuse of parliamentary funds by the FN.[201]
Marine Le Pen and Vladimir Putin in Moscow on 24 March 2017
Le Pen has met with several incumbent heads of state including Lebanon's Michel Aoun,[202] Chad's Idriss Déby,[203] and Russia's Vladimir Putin.[204]
The ground floor of the building which housed Le Pen's campaign headquarters was targeted by an arson attempt during the early morning of 13 April.[205][206]
In 2017, Le Pen argued that France as a nation bore no responsibility for the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup, a part of the Holocaust in which Paris policemen arrested Jewish citizens for deportation to Auschwitz. She repeated a gaullist thesis according which France was not represented by the Vichy regime but by General de Gaulle's Free France.[207]
On 20 April 2017, in the wake of a shooting targeting police officers that was treated as a suspected terrorist attack, Le Pen canceled a planned campaign event. The next day, she called for the closure of all mosques, a remark that received criticism from the French Prime Minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, who accused her of attempting to "capitalize" on the incident. She also called for the expulsion of hate preachers and people on the French security services' watch list, and the revocation of their citizenship. The Guardian noted that the attack may serve as "ammunition" for right-wing candidates in the election, such as Le Pen.[208][209]
Political positions
Economy
Marine Le Pen contends that the FN's immigration programme is better known among the voters; she thus concentrates on the party's economic and social programme.[210][211]
On 17 October 2011, in front of the French Dexia headquarters in La Défense, Marine Le Pen holds a press conference about the systemic banking crisis
Opposed to free trade and autarky, she advocates protectionism as a median way. In her view, if one considers the economy to be a raging river, then free trade is like allowing the torrent to rush along unchecked; autarky equates to the erection of a dam whereas protectionism is to install a sluice gate. "Protectionism is not autarky! ... Our position is not extreme – as our opponents would have it believed – but one which favours the middle way".[40]
In 2010, she vigorously criticized the pension plan drawn up by Nicolas Sarkozy and his liberal-conservative government.[212][213]
She paid tribute to the economist Maurice Allais, who died on 9 October 2010.[214] A French laureate of the Nobel Prize in Economics (1988), Allais had expressed concerns about the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, the single European currency, free trade and globalization and the 2004 European Constitution.[215][216]
She favours the repeal of the 1973 Pompidou-Giscard Law, which makes it illegal for France to borrow at zero or a low rate of interest from the Banque de France and forces the country to borrow at higher rate on the international financial markets. In her view, the national debt has grown steeply because of this law. She claimed that in 2010 France had already refunded 1.355 trillion euros of accrued interest on loans at a time when the national debt represented around 1.650 trillion euros.[211][217]
She has expressed support for the French public utilities, the civil servants, and the general public interest.[218][219] She thus opposes the programmed privatization of the French Post Office (La Poste) : in her view, "the privatization, with the aim of only making profitable, will result in the removal of post offices in the rural areas where the relinquishment of the state is already high". In October 2009, she claimed that three post offices had already disappeared each day in France since 1 January 2009.[220][221] She said that the liberalization of the French public utilities had been ratified by the former Prime Minister Lionel Jospin during the Barcelona summit on 15 and 16 March 2002.[222][223] She had also warned that the UMP government planned a "progressive privatization of the French Social Security system from 2011" – a condition imposed by the financial markets.[224]
During a press conference in June 2011, she advocated to reintroduce the Havana Charter and implement an "International Trade Organization" (in place of World Trade Organization), in order to reorganize the world trade exchanges.[225] Signed by 53 countries and rejected by the US in 1951, this Charter was a trade agreement that would have established an international currency known as the bancor.[226] She claimed that the "Havana Charters's proposals perfectly fit into her economic philosophy"[225] and that "its first article conciliates international trade and employment".[227]
During her speech at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. in November 2011, she proposed "three essential solutions to stop the current world systemic crisis and turn the world towards a greater justice and greater prosperity": reintroduction of a "polymetallic standard" in the International monetary systems as a world standard of reference and exchanges in order to establish a "free monetary system" and struggle against speculation; the ratification of the modernized Havana Charter by the 1948 signatory nations and incoming emerging countries, in order to favour a "reasonable protectionism that encourages cooperation in trade among nations through the end of 'unbridled free trade'"; application of the 1933 Glass–Steagall Act, which legally separated investment banking and commercial banking, to "the banking system of each country".[226][227] In her view, these solutions will be able to bring a global support for employment thanks to the integration of "full employment" appearing as one of the main targets of the Havana Charter and for industry thanks to the authorization of state aids appearing in the Charter's article 13.[227]
In October 2011, she advocated to implement a drastic regulation of the banking sector separating by law the deposit banks from the merchant banks. She claimed that "the deposit banks should be rescued by a temporary and partial nationalization". In her view, "the balance sheet of the banks should be the object of a transparency operation".[228]
In October 2011, she suggested 7 measures to save €30 billion per year in order to preserve France's AAA credit rating.[229] The largest part of the measures are made up of avoiding fraud on welfare payments and avoidance of tax loopholes (together €18.5 bn), stopping non-useful local spending (€4bn) as well as stopping payments of France to the EU (€7bn).
A president of the Mouvement des Entreprises de France (MEDEF), Laurence Parisot regularly levels strong criticism at the FN's economic and social programme.[230] She replied that "the FN is not the friend of the CAC 40 and is fighting the social regression brought about by the MEDEF and inflicted on the French people by the allies of the UMP and the PS".[231] After Parisot's new criticism, she claims that "the philosophy of the FN's economic project comes down to some words: construction of a strong, protective and strategist state, reasoned protections at the boundaries, support to the small and medium enterprises, and get back the monetary sovereignty, only able to assure France's recovery".[232] She also replied that "Laurence Parisot, this is the exact opposite of her democratic and republican project, a project of hope which puts back man and nation in the center of politics".[233] After the publication of Parisot's critical book relating to the FN economic project, she suggested a "direct and public debate" with the president of the MEDEF.[234]
Agriculture and environment
In her view, "the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) after 2013 will be unable to protect our farmers from speculators and savage global competition, or to compensate for the excesses of the multinationals of the food processing industry and large-scale distributors. The CAP after 2013 will remain wedged between the ultraliberal and internationalist market logic of the European Commission and a future ‘green’ CAP, in reality serving the neo-capitalists of ecological business".[235]
During her first visit at the Paris International Agricultural Show on 25 February 2011,[236] Marine Le Pen denounced the CAP as an "unbearable bureaucracy" and advocated to replace it with a "French agricultural policy". She also claimed that "leaving the EU, we could allocate 15 billions of euros to our agriculture".[237][238][239]
She claims that 'internationalist organisations' such as the EU, FAO, United Nations and G-20 are directly responsible for the food crises throughout the world. She advocates France's food independence with regard to multinationals[240] and "a realignment of the farm aid politics to the third countries in order to favour their food sovereignty in particular by the reintroduction of localized food crops".[241]
She advocates the implementation of the "autarky of big spaces" and an "economy in concentric circles". In her view, it is an "ecological heresy to consume products grown at 20,000 km away and recycle waste thousands km further". She claims that we should "produce to the closest", "distribute on the spot", "consume as a priority products of its region" and then "in the nearby region" if not produced on the spot. She seeks to implement "contracts of cooperation" if necessary goods like coffee are not produced in Europe.[242]
Energy and transport
On 19 October 2011, Marine Le Pen in Milipol
Marine Le Pen regularly denounces sharp rises in energy prices[243][244] (gas,[245] gasoline,[246][247][248] electricity[249]) which has "harmful consequences on the purchasing power of the working and middle-class families".[246][247][248] In her view, this rise mainly stems from the European liberalization of the energy sector, jointly implemented by right wing and socialist governments since 1996.[243][245][249]
She advocates an immediate reduction of 20% of the domestic tax on oil products (TIPP), a surcharge of fantastic profits of the largest gas and oil companies and a struggle against international speculation on basic products such as food and energy.[243][244][246][247][248] She considers that "a strong state has authority to be the guarantor of public utilities, being the exclusive owner of the strategic companies of public utility and the regulator of tariffs".[245]
After a fatal event occurred on 12 September 2011 in the Centraco nuclear installation located on the Marcoule Nuclear Site, she claimed that "this accident illustrated the dangerousness of this energy and the necessity to consider a progressive and well-thought-out exit from nuclear power". In her view, "the State must secure the 58 French nuclear power plants and invest in researches to process nuclear waste". She advocates to "start the energy diversification of France, in particular with an ambitious programme of research into hydrogen".[250]
She favours accompanied combined transport (ferroutage) and public transport.[242]
Taxation
Marine Le Pen denounces the current corporate tax as "a crying injustice". She claims that the main groups of CAC 40 only pay 8% of corporate tax whereas the small offices/home offices, the small and medium enterprises, the craftsmen and the shopkeepers fully pay 33.33%. She advocates to implement a flexible corporate tax according to the use of profits: heavier when the profits benefit the shareholders and lighter when the profits turn towards profit sharing, salaries, employment and productive investment, enabling a relocation of activities.[251]
European Union and globalization
Le Pen with Volen Siderov
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