Thread: Marine Le Pen and niece lead France's FN into dominant territory

Marine Le Pen and niece lead France's FN into dominant territory

By Bertrand Pinon 20 hours ago



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Paris (AFP) - One is a pragmatist: a 47-year-old lawyer by training who has steered France's far-right National Front (FN) from pariah status to mainstream.
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The other is an ideologue: her 25-year-old niece, a Roman Catholic traditionalist whose easy smile and blonde hair belie a stance on abortion, homosexuality and Islam that critics say is dangerous or sectarian.

On Sunday, Marine Le Pen and Marion Marechal-Le Pen -- respectively the daughter and grand-daughter of the FN's firebrand founder, Jean-Marie Le Pen -- established themselves as major players in France's political landscape.

The first round of regional elections placed the FN on track to break the grip of Socialists and conservatives, cementing the party's grassroots' rise across the country.

In the Nord-Pas-de-Calais, a rustbelt bastion of the Socialists who rule at national level, opinion-poll estimates gave Le Pen more than 40 percent of the first-round vote.

Victory in the second round on December 13 would give her a springboard for her bid to be president in 2017.
Marechal-Le Pen, meanwhile, also scored above 40 percent in the early estimates for the vast Provence-Alpes-Cote-d'Azur (PACA) region in the south, placing her on course for a landmark win next Sunday.
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The president of the Front National party Marine Le Pen reacts after the announcement of the results …

- Thrust into limelight -

Marine Le Pen was never supposed to inherit the party from father, who rocked the establishment by reaching the second round of the presidential election in 2002 at the expense of Socialist Lionel Jospin.

It was Marine's older sister, Marie-Caroline, who had been groomed to take over the helm.
But the FN's brutal internal politics and family splits saw Marine propelled into the limelight instead.
She took over the reins in 2011 and swiftly set about giving the FN "a different image to the stereotype" that opponents painted as visceral and xenophobic.

She sought to purge the worst of the anti-Semitic elements as well as the fundamentalist Catholics who for three decades had been one of the main strands of the party leadership.
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Vice-President of the Front National party and candidate for regional elections in the Provence-Alpe …

Her makeover was hit by a very public rebellion within her own family.

Her father, now 87, was clearly unhappy with the direction in which she was taking the party and sought to undermine her with a string of anti-Semitic diatribes.

It led to Le Pen senior being thrown out of the party he founded in the middle of 2015. He and his daughter are said not to have spoken since.

But with the November 13 attacks in Paris, his daughter was able to turn attention away from the family soap opera and declare that the Western world had "no choice but to win the war" against the attackers from the Islamic State group.

"If we fail, Islamist totalitarianism will take power in our country," she said.

- Young mother -

Many observers believe it is her photogenic niece Marion who is the real ideological heir of Jean-Marie Le Pen, and better placed at a time of crisis to woo electors worried about the nation's future.

She stood -- unsuccessfully -- for regional elections in 2010 and famously cracked when a reporter asked her to outline policy areas she wanted to address, unable to provide a single example.

But since becoming an MP, and a mother for the first time, Marion has gone through an astonishing transformation, building a growing following among young radicals and older party supporters disgruntled with her aunt's apparent moderation.

She had no qualms in standing up in the lower house, the National Assembly, and accusing a visibly furious Prime Minister Manuel Valls of "moronic contempt" towards the FN.

She also joined the ranks of anti-gay marriage protesters in 2013 when Marine decided to stay away.
Last month, she also demanded an end to state subsidies for family-planning associations, "which today are peddling abortion as something that's run-of-the-mill".

And last week, she raised a storm when, in Toulon, a Mediterranean city with a large number of citizens of Arab descent, she said Muslims could only be French "if they follow customs and a lifestyle that has been shaped by Greek and Roman influence and 16 centuries of Christianity."

"We are not a land of Islam," she said. "In our country, we don't wear djellaba clothing, we don't wear a veil and we don't impose cathedral-sized mosques."

http://news.yahoo.com/marine-le-pen-...111250372.html

I hope Marine Le Pen and her party clean house in the next elections. So many successful national and global revolutions have begun in France! May the French rise again through nationalism because nationalism is the only thing that can save our nations now.

W

France as a nation is not as liberal as many Americans think. It's probably more likely that there have been significant divides in political views. France has often intervened with its military in the Sub Saharan region---and for better or worse helped overthrow Qaddafi. The Brittany region identifies with Celtic culture.

Marine Le Pen attacks 'collective suicide' as France's Socialists fall on sword to block FN

France's Socialists withdraw candidates from three key regions in bid to block far-Right Front National from historic victories in next Sunday's run-off

France's Socialist Party on Monday said its candidates would fall on their swords in three regions to try and prevent the far-Right Front National from clinching historic electoral victories next Sunday.

The FN made sweeping gains across France in the first round of regional elections on Sunday, coming top in six out of 13 regions and taking 28 per cent of the national vote.

By withdrawing from the second round in regions where they came third, the Socialists hope to fend off FN wins by turning the run-offs into a duel with Nicolas Sarkozy's conservative

The Republicans party, formerly known as the UMP.

Marine Le Pen, the FN leader, criticised the Socialist tactical retreat as “collective suicide” that would deprive its voters of any regional councilors for the next six years and mark “the beginning of the

disappearance pure and simple of the Socialist Party”.

With its centrist allies, The Republicans, Nicolas Sarkozy’s opposition Right-wing party, came second on 27 per cent and was in pole position in only four regions, including Paris.

The ruling Socialists, who are currently in control of all but one French region, came top in just two, mustering just 23.5 per cent of the national vote.

However, they can count on some support from Communist and Green voters in round two.

The elections came as France is under a state of emergency just three weeks after Isil-linked terrorists killed 130 in Paris.

The Socialists have pledged to withdraw their candidate from the Nord-Pas de Calais-Picardy region where they came third to Ms Le Pen.

The FN leader came in front on 41 per cent - well ahead of the mainstream Right candidate, Xavier Bertrand.

Nor will the Socialists be fielding a candidate in round two down South in Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, where Marion Maréchal Le Pen, Marine’s 25-year old niece, clinched a similarly high score.

The party is also pulling out its candidate from the eastern Alsace-Champagne Ardenne-Lorraine region.

"There is too big of a risk of victory for the National Front for us to keep our candidates in this region," said Bruno Le Roux, the Socialists’ parliamentary leader.

After a string of electoral highs, the FN broke another glass ceiling on Sunday, boosted by voters' fears over the Paris attacks, immigration linked to the refugee crisis and record unemployment.

Ms Le Pen slammed the Socialist candidates’ withdrawal as “unfair” on Monday.

“Today, they're twisting the arm of the French, of the Left. Are they going to accept being insulted, despised? We'll see," she told RTL radio.

Mr Sarkozy, on the other hand, has ordered his party’s candidates to “neither withdraw nor merge” with the Left, leading Jean-Chrisophe Cambadélis, Socialist leader, to call his party the “final rampart

against the extreme Right in France”.

A row has erupted within Mr Sarkozy’s party over whether his decision to take a hard-Right line had simply increased the far-Right vote or spared his party even further humiliation.

Analysts warn that even without a Socialist candidate in the run-off, the FN is heading for victory in the two northern and southern regions.

The far-Right has been steadily gaining ground in France over the past few years as Ms Le Pen has kept up its nationalist, anti-EU, anti-immigrant discourse while “detoxifying” the part of its least savoury elements.

Victories would not only hand control of a regional government to the FN for the first time, but would also give Le Pen a springboard for her presidential bid in 2017.

Marine Le Pen attacks 'collective suicide' as France's Socialists fall on sword to block FN - Telegraph

National Front breakthrough stuns France’s traditional parties

A day after the far-right National Front party reinforced its claim to be France’s most potent political force, the country’s mainstream parties were confronted with unpalatable options to try to contain

its seemingly inexorable rise eighteen months before the next presidential poll.

Mainstream dilemma

Three weeks after terrorists killed 130 in a series of attacks in Paris, the FN stunned the French political elite by coming first in 6 out 13 contests in first-round regional elections and winning a record 28

per cent of the vote nationwide.

For traditional parties, the FN’s success poses an agonising dilemma: unite to beat the far-right in Sunday’s run-off vote, but at the risk of playing into to Ms Le Pen’s narrative of a mainstream conspiracy intent

on blocking her; or stay in the race and hand her control of regional councils for the next six years, giving the FN the chance to build a track record in power.

Either way is likely to help Ms Le Pen’s presidential bid in 2017, according to Laurent Bouvet, political sciences professor at Versailles University: “For mainstream parties, it’s a lose-lose situation.”

National Front breakthrough stuns France?s traditional parties - FT.com

French PM warns country could 'face civil war' if Marine Le Pen wins

French PM warns country could 'face civil war' should Marine Le Pen's National Front triumph at the polls this weekend

The far-right political party has made dramatic gains in last weekend's first round of local elections

The French Prime Minister has warned his country could face “civil war” should a far-right party triumph at the regional polls this weekend.

Socialist leader Manuel Valls, speaking on France Inter radio station, claimed a victory for the National Front (FN) – which has seen record gains in the first round of local voting –

would only heighten divisions in a country still reeling from the Paris attacks in November.

"We have reached a historic moment where the bottom line for our country is a choice between two options," said Mr Valls.

"One is the extreme right, which basically stands for division, a division that can lead to civil war."

The FN, led by controversial figure Marine Le Pen, is in pole position to seize six districts with 28 per cent of the vote nationally. The unprecedented result has left the political establishment reeling.

“There is another vision, which is that of the Republic and its values,” Mr Valls continued, urging French citizens to vote for “unity”.

In a highly unusual move, the socialist party has urged its candidates in the north, east and south-east – where the FN received the largest share of the vote – to step aside and boost the chances of a centre-

right victory, or indeed of any party but FN.

Ms Le Pen - who won more than 40 per cent of the vote in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie regional elections last weekend – hit back at Mr Valls assertion as a “delirious outburst”.

"Let me remind the prime minister that the war being waged against France today is being waged by Islamist fundamentalists bottle-fed by a laxist, sectarian Socialist Party," she said.

French PM warns country could 'face civil war' should Marine Le Pen's National Front triumph at the polls this weekend | Europe | News | The Independent

Marine Le Pen may be the new modern Joan of Arc of France.

Trump v Le Pen: In their own words

With Donald Trump and Marine Le Pen surging in the polls in the US and France, comparisons between the two politicians have been popping up all over the place.

"Donald Trump is now America's Marine Le Pen," declared a headline in the New Yorker this week.

"Europe has plenty of its own Donald Trumps," responded Marc Champion in BloombergView, noting that Le Pen may have a better chance of becoming president in France than Trump in the US.

When it came to Donald Trump's call for a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the US" Ms Le Pen asked a television interviewer: "Seriously, have you ever heard me say something like that?"

One answer could be that it depends on the definition of "like".

Here is a comparison of quotations from the two politicians on this and other topics.

Migrants

Trump: Donald J Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what the hell is going on.

We have no choice. We have no choice. We have no choice. (December 2015)

Le Pen: Marine le Pen calls for an immediate end to all reception of migrants in France and an immediate end to their dispersal in the municipalities of France, both villages and towns.

The security of the French people renders this precaution pressing. (November 2015 )

(Trump was speaking after the San Bernardino shootings, and Le Pen after news that one of the Paris attackers entered Europe as a migrant.)

Trump: When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending the best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us [sic].

They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people. (June 2015)

Le Pen: Would you accept 12 illegal immigrants moving into your flat? You would not. On top of that, they start to remove the wallpaper. Some of them would steal your wallet and brutalise your wife.

You would not accept that. Consequently, we are welcoming, but we decide with whom we are welcoming. (May 2012)

Borders

Trump: I will build a great wall - and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me - and I'll build them very inexpensively. I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make

Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words. (June 2015)

Le Pen: Whatever the EU says, it is essential that France gets back control of its national borders once and for all. Without borders, neither defence nor security is possible. (November 2015)

Christianity

Trump: I will be the greatest representative of the Christians that they've had in a long time. (June 2015)

Le Pen: Liberty, equality, fraternity are Christian values! France can be secular because it is Christian at its origin. (April 2012)

Vladimir Putin

Trump: I think that I would probably get along with him very well. And I don't think you'd be having the kind of problems that you're having right now. (October 2015)

Le Pen: I admire his cool head because there's a Cold War being waged against him by the EU at the behest of the United States, which is defending its own interests.

I admire that he's managed to restore pride and contentment to a great nation that's been humiliated and persecuted for 70 years. (January 2014)

Climate change

Trump: Obama thinks it's the number one problem of the world today. And I think it's very low on the list. So I am not a believer, and I will - unless somebody can prove something to me - I believe there's weather.

I believe there's change, and I believe it goes up, and it goes down, and it goes up again. (September 2015)

Le Pen: I am not sure that human activity is the principal origin of this phenomenon. (February 2012)

Patriotism

Trump: Sadly, the American dream is dead. But if I get elected president I will bring it back bigger and better and stronger than ever before, and we will make America great again. (June 2015)

Le Pen: There's something I will say: In the US, people are very patriotic. Their patriotism is obvious. In France, for many years, you had to fight to be patriotic. People are pushing us from loving our own country. (April 2015)

Globalisation

Trump: I'm a free-trader. But the problem with free trade is you need really talented people to negotiate for you… Free trade can be wonderful if you have smart people, but we have people that are stupid.

We have people that aren't smart. And we have people that are controlled by special interests. And it's just not going to work. (June 2015)

Le Pen: Danger number one is two-faced. One, Islamic fundamentalism, which is a kind of totalitarianism in the 21st Century. The second is globalisation, which is another kind of totalitarianism, the

ideology of free business with no boundaries. (April 2015)

Islamic State

Trump: Nobody would be tougher on ISIS than Donald Trump. Nobody. I will find — within our military - I will find the General Patton, or I will find General MacArthur. I will find the right guy.

I will find the guy that's going to take that military and make it really work. Nobody, nobody will be pushing us around. (June 2015)

Le Pen: Bashar al-Assad leads Syria today, he leads an army, there is no other way if one wants to eradicate Islamic State than to join a large coalition including Bashar al-Assad…

If I were president I would have done it three years ago. (October 2015)

China

Trump: When was the last time anybody saw us beating, let's say, China in a trade deal? They kill us. I beat China all the time. All the time. (June 2015)

Le Pen: All the big French groups chose China, where they undertake a large part of their production. There again, the focus on China for French production gave rise to one of the great

unchallengeable dogmas of recent decades.

The sun was supposed to be setting in France and rising in China. (August 2015)

Iraq

Trump: People are getting their heads chopped off, they're being drowned. Right now, they are far worse than they were, ever, under Saddam Hussein or Gaddafi. (October 2015)

Le Pen: The fall of Saddam Hussein led to chaos in Iraq, which has become the home of jihadism. (February 2015)

Abortion

Trump: Well, the answer is yes, defund [ie stop government funding for the reproductive health non-profit organisation Planned Parenthood]. The other, [overturning the Supreme Court ruling Roe v

Wade, which affirms a woman's right to an abortion] you need a lot of Supreme Court justices.

But we're gonna be looking at that also very, very carefully. But you need a lot of Supreme Court judges. But defund, yes, we're going to be doing that. (December 2015)

Le Pen: I am for freely available contraception and freely available abortion. (December 2015)

Jobs

Trump: I will be the greatest jobs president that God ever created. I tell you that. I'll bring back our jobs from China, from Mexico, from Japan, from so many places. I'll bring back our jobs, and I'll

bring back our money. (June 2015)

Le Pen: Only the Front National plans to give back to France those essential weapons [such as control of its national budget and borders] to help it fight in a globalised world and achieve innovation

and re-industrialisation. (October 2015)

Trump v Le Pen: In their own words - BBC News

Live: Far right fails to win single region in key regional elections

Marine Le Pen's far-right party failed to win a single region in the key French poll, as voter participation surged to back mainstream parties. Get all the results and analysis on our liveblog.

The anti-immigration FN topped the vote in six of 13 regions in last weekend's first round, with French voters responding positively to the party's rejection of mainstream politics.

Fears over immigration, the terrorist attacks in Paris that killed 130 people last month and frustration at high unemployment also contributed to the far right's strong showing in the first round.

President François Hollande's Socialist Party (PS) has withdrawn its candidates from two key regions, urging its supporters to back mainstream conservatives in the run-offs to keep the FN out of power.

Turnout at 5pm reached 50.54%, up 7% from the last regional vote in 2010 and over the first-round vote last Sunday.

First estimates are expected after polls close at 8pm local time (GMT+1).

france 24 - Live: Far right fails to win single region in key regional elections - France 24

Oh that's not good!