How do you solve a problem like Jean-Marie? That is dilemma facing Marine Le Pen as her National Rally party prepares to mark the 50th anniversary of its creation next month.
The party has evolved a great deal in that time, especially in the decade since Le Pen succeeded her father, Jean-Marie, as leader of a party that for most of its existence has been known as the National Front.
The rebrand to the National Rally occurred in 2018, the most significant action taken by Marine Le Pen in her bid to leave behind the malodorous legacy of her father. The former paratrooper launched the National Front on 5 October 1972 and over the next 40 years gained a reputation as a far-right agitator whose most notorious declaration – among many – was to describe the Holocaust as a ‘detail of history’.
But for all his bigotry, Le Pen senior was a canny politician and a charismatic leader who took his party from a fringe outfit to the second round of the 2002 presidential election.
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