A Le Pen as president?

19 March 2011

Marine Le Pen is the new, friendly face of French extremism – and suddenly, she’s leading in the polls

There are just 13 months to go until the French presidential election and Le Phénomène Marine Le Pen, as it is called here, is getting spooky. Not so long ago, the 42-year-old daughter of Jean-Marie, now leader of the French National Front herself, was regarded as something of a joke — albeit quite an intelligent one. But now her detractors are taking her seriously. The last national opinion poll placed her first, with Nicholas Sarkozy trailing in third place. A quarter of Sarkozy’s former supporters are thought to have abandoned him for this twice-divorced mother of three, and it is becoming increasingly hard to dismiss her chances of becoming the next French president.

Having taken over as party leader in January, she still has a novelty factor — she is a regular on the sofas of French television shows. Many French analysts refused to believe her surge in the opinion polls, and are trying to find methodological inconsistencies. Le Monde went as far as to launch an investigation into the pollsters and their tactics. But there is no mystery as to why she jumps out as a candidate. Her main rival on the right is the increasingly unpopular Sarkzoy, while on the left she faces the austere Martine Aubry, Socialist Party leader and daughter of Jacques Delors, and the priapic bon viveur Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former finance minister.

Little wonder the colourful Mme Le Pen is on something of a roll. She is, alas, no monster. She has a polished, winning charm. She has always made herself accessible, pitching herself as a woman of the people — in contrast to the haughty Sarkozy, who annoys the French with his nervous tics, his sweating, and his hastily acquired supermodel wife. In Strasbourg recently — a haven of far right extremism — Mme Le Pen pressed the flesh and thanked her supporters, happily declaring that she is ‘taking it calmly’.

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Herbert Thornton

March 19th, 2011 5:30am Report this comment

This is very encouraging news. Decent people like Marine Le Pen have been demonised for far too long, in France, in the Netherlands and in Britain too.

The public are realising that the constant labeling of indigenous political parties as "racist" and "far right" and "extremist" are empty words - and it's beginning to wear rather thin, especially now that it's clear that real extremism - flying airliners into skyscrapers, bombing trains and buses and airports and setting cars on fire is the specialty of different people altogether.

Tariq

March 24th, 2011 1:54pm Report this comment

Obvously, it's very tempting for certain French to blame their intractable economic difficulties, worldwide loss of influence and sense of cultural confusion on stubbornly unassimilable foreigners. But look what happened when Sarkozy ordered the expulsion of the Roma last summer: his support among practicing Catholics collapsed. More recently, his pledge to hold a national debate on the place of Islam in France has gone over like another lead balloon; even his prime minister has more or less repudiated it. This should prove to him and to Le Pen that casting around for scapegoats isn't going to solve France's problems.

By December, one million French will have run out of unemployment benefits. If Sarkozy doesn't focus on that to the exclusion of almost all else, he can kiss his second term goodbye. And Le Pen has nothing concrete to propose on that score either.

David B

March 24th, 2011 9:41pm Report this comment

The author has a shaky grasp of the French electoral system - or is trying to be sensational.
Le Pen scored 23% in a poll...for the 1st round! In the 2nd round she would get back these votes, maybe 5 or 10% from Sarkozy, and nothing more, far from the 51% she needs.
The article is good, but saying she has a real chance of winning the whole thing is just incorrect, at least for 2012.
Plus, she has basically been campaigning for this election for 6 months, meaning she's the only officially declared candidate, which as you know is a huge advantage in the polls.

Gene Carr

April 18th, 2011 4:52pm Report this comment

I am glad to hear that Le Pen is "no Sarah Palin". After all Palin is a mainstream conservative politician, whose policy positions are in line with a plurality of Americans. She also has a very fine record of bipartissanship. And in contrast to the Le Pen legacy Palin does not have a racist or anti-semetic bone in her body.

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