France’s Far Right Gets a New Face

Jean Marie Le Pen’s tenure as head of the far right French National Front party is coming to an end. Can his daughter help the party break into the mainstream?

Jean Marie Le Pen’s legacy as head of the far right French National Front party is slowly coming to an end. The old, flamboyant and erratic leader is looking to step aside and hand the reins to his daughter, Marine.  A number of polls now suggest that the younger Le Pen is likely to exceed her father’s best showing at the polls.

In 2002, the senior Le Pen won 16.86% in the first round of the presidential race and 17.79% in the run-off.  His strongest ever showing.  Early polls for the upcoming 2012 French presidential election suggested that Marine Le Pen could come in third, garnering 13% of the votes. But as the public backlash against the Sarkozy administration has grown, more recent polls show her voter percentage climbing even higher: to as much as 22%.

Now, Marine Le Pen’s grand vision of a revitalized National Front under the patronage of a young female leader is slowly crystallizing. The party has been trying hard to shrug off the past of its overbearing leader, Jean Marie.  While the elder Le Pen openly expressed doubts over the Holocaust, the younger Le Pen doesn’t focus on such topics.  She’s abandoned the continuing WWII nostalgia of her father.  Instead, Marine has tried to position herself as a jeans and high-heels wearing Joan of Arc.  This “new look” Front National is redefining itself as a modern defender of France: for abortion, but against the Euro, globalization and the continual outsourcing of French jobs.

Despite trying hard to barge into mainstream politics Marine seems to have inherited her father’s love for fiery rhetoric.  She has compared the spread of Islam in France with the Nazi occupation.  These sentiments though seem to be part of a calculated strategy.  The party appears to be aiming to replicate the success of Islamophobic parties elsewhere in Europe (such as Geert Wilder’s Partij voor de Vrijheid -- “Party for Freedom” -- in the Netherlands.).

Whether Marine’s strategy to reposition the National Front within the mainstream of French politics will succeed remains to be seen.  The party may have applied some fresh makeup over its deteriorated façade, however, it still remains the social pariah it was under Jean Marie.

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