Marie Le Pen Make France Great Again
J acky Ruiz was close to tears. For three hours he had waited to have his photograph taken with Marine Le Pen and at present in that location it was. The quondam cabaret star stared at the picture on his outdated folding phone.
"Oh my goodness, this is so moving. I told her that I'd danced at a show attended by her male parent, Jean-Marie, back in the 1980s when she was a small girl and she said she was there and she remembered information technology," the seventy-year-old said. He pulled a dilapidated black-and-white image of a long-legged dancer in a leotard from his pocket.
"I showed her this: information technology's me. I can't believe I got to speak to her. I'll vote for her but I don't remember she'll win. Although she's inverse, the Le Pen proper name withal makes people afraid."
At that place was more faith than fear among the crowds that turned out for the Le Pen roadshow in south-western France this week, the concluding dates in a campaign that started more than than ii years ago. Le Pen has said this third presidential bid will exist her final, so for fans near the Pyrenees and Spanish border, where far-correct support is strong, it is now or never. And they have never felt closer to victory than they do now.
A string of polls in the run-up to the stop of campaigning at midnight on Fri suggested Le Pen had closed the gap on Emmanuel Macron to within the margin of mistake. Elabe put Macron at 26% and Le Pen on 25% for Dominicus's first-round vote, with the radical left's Jean-Luc Mélenchon on 17.5%. The pocket-sized-sample poll suggested the 2d-circular event could be equally shut, with Macron winning at 51% to Le Pen's 49%. A larger Ifop poll has Macron winning 52%-48%.
At Les Halles covered market in the historic south-western city of Narbonne, where Le Pen paid an impromptu visit on Friday morning, her eldest sis, Marie-Caroline, admitted the first circular would be nailbiting merely said everyone was belongings their nerve, especially Marine: "She'southward amazing; solid like granite." And judging from the upbeat mood of members of Le Pen's elevation team, in their sharp navy suits and crisp white shirts, they conspicuously scent victory.
The previous evening, at her last major meeting, a crowd of about 4,000 had gathered in Perpignan, the majuscule of the Pyrenées-Orientales département run by mayor Louis Aliot – who too happens to be the former vice-president of Le Pen's National Rally (RN) party and her ex-partner.
Indonesian-born Yuni Yulianti, 40, said she would exist voting Le Pen: "I'm not worried about beingness a greenhorn. She has naught against those of us who respect the police. She'south against the many, many people who don't." Her friend Stephanie Bauer, 50, a chemist, nodded: "I'one thousand voting for Marine Le Pen and I have mixed-race grandchildren."
Most of those attending were already Le Pen voters. They snapped up merchandise including T-shirts, scarves, pens, lighters and baby bibs, and chanted "Marine President" or "On va gagner" (we're going to win). Her spoken communication was littered with trigger phrases: "patriots don't abstain" (thanks); "ultra-liberalism" (boos); "more police" (thank you); "Macron" (boos).
In the urban center, the views of those not attending the rally were more nuanced. "Personally I'1000 a Macron man. That's not to say he doesn't have his faults, simply I think he'due south the best option to run the country," Marc Sirjean, 75, a retired auditor, said. "I'one thousand not convinced by Marine Le Pen. I retrieve she's as well rigid and I don't retrieve she'd be able to put together a team to government."
Le Pen, of form, has a set up answer to this; she promises to form a government of "national unity". On Friday, the RN's acting president, Hashemite kingdom of jordan Bardella, told the Observer this would include politicians from beyond the political spectrum, including the "left and right". And he was sure she would exist in a position to practise so.
"The dynamics at the end of the campaign are with us and Mélenchon. If the French become and vote we will win," he said. "The reason she has succeeded is she speaks to the French virtually their daily problems, the cost of living, health, the concerns of young people."
Merely the rise of Le Pen's political star is not only due to a tectonic shift of France's political landscape to the right. It is too down to the inveterate dislike of an incumbent president. Macron, once the new face, an outsider shaking up the left-right political scene, is now seen equally part of that scene.
Le Pen has also benefited from far-right election rival Éric Zemmour's hawkish stance, which has fabricated her hardline arroyo to contentious issues such as immigration, Islam and criminal offence seem less extreme by comparison.
Le Pen's father, Jean-Marie, never really came close to power and would not accept known what to do with it if he had. His raison d'être was to be a political disruptor, to overturn the table and walk abroad. His surprise 2002 victory in the first round had trivial to practise with support for the far right: it happened because the left was split and French voters used their offset round ballot to "ship a message", convinced that socialist candidate Lionel Jospin'due south identify in the second circular was assured. Every bit they discovered, it was not.
Marine Le Pen took over what was then the Front National in 2011 and set about laundering its paradigm, tarnished by xenophobic neo-Nazi thugs with shaven heads and jackboots. Members were expelled for racist and antisemitic remarks or for defending Philippe Pétain, head of France's Nazi-collaborating Vichy government in the 1940s. She even threw out her ain father in 2015.
The "de-demonisation", as information technology was called, worked. In 2012 she made her first bid to become president, polling 17.nine% in the first round for third position backside the socialist François Hollande – who eventually won – and the conservative Nicolas Sarkozy. In May 2014, the FN gained two senators, the commencement time party representatives had entered the upper firm, and added 11 mayors to their electoral tally. The FN also won the European elections that year, with 24.9% of the vote, sending 25 representatives to the European parliament.
Le Pen ran again in 2017, winning 21.3% of the first circular vote, enough to reach the 2nd round. In the run-off she scored 33.ix%, a far lower score than predicted confronting Macron, then a political newcomer.
The Front National's program at the time looked similar to Le Pen senior's from 2002: the accent on "national priority" for housing, benefits and jobs; the defence of small businesses confronting big groups; tougher police and judicial powers.
After that defeat, she renamed the political party the Rassemblement National, or National Rally. Information technology has stopped calling for the death penalty and for France to leave the EU – although she remains committed to ignoring Brussels. She continues to champion nationalistic "French start" bigotry, but there is also a commitment to more left-leaning economic science, including increases in pensions, opposition to the privatisation of public services, and protectionism as an alternative to globalisation.
Unlike Zemmour, she does not suggest zero immigration – she wants a plebiscite on the issue – and has stolen the UK home secretarial assistant Priti Patel's idea of dealing with asylum requests abroad. Illegal immigrants and those that break the law would be expelled, she says, just she has abased the party'southward opposition to union equality and abortion.
Her foreign policy is vague. Until recently, she was a song supporter of Russian federation and Vladimir Putin – a photo with the Russian leader in Moscow appears in her manifesto – a position that required a swift U-plough afterward Russian troops invaded Ukraine. This and a pledge to pull French republic out of Nato, echoed by the radical left, seem to have had piffling effect on her popularity.
In 2002, few would acknowledge voting for Le Pen père. Today, Marine, at 53, the youngest of his 3 daughters, has succeeded in drawing much of the poison from the notorious name.
Critics say she has inverse her style but non the party's toxic substance. A recent report by the left-leaning Jean-Jaurès Foundation stated: "Form has taken precedence over substance … theatre over plan." Even so, information technology added: "The arguments linked to her incompetence or her lack of knowledge no longer seem to hold water at a fourth dimension when parts of France consider her to be completely presidential and shut to the people, and no more worrying than other candidates. It is therefore on a completely different terrain that her future opponent will have to beat her in the second round, if she gets there."
Talking to voters outside Paris, the overall impression is that French people are looking for alter – many merely for change'due south sake. Serving presidents, historically, take a difficult job getting re-elected and some felt Macron had left information technology also late to entrada, seeing this as bear witness of arrogance. In his only rally last Sun, Macron warned supporters not to presume he would win a 2d term or defeat Le Pen. Afterwards, he told Le Parisien newspaper: "Marine Le Pen has a racist and extremely brutal programme. She'south lying to yous."
Former rugby histrion Gilles Belzons, 50, owner of the Chez Bébelle bar-restaurant in Narbonne market, said he had not decided who would become his vote: "I recollect we should respect all the candidates, including Marine Le Pen especially, equally she could exist the next president of the republic. I'g a businessman and a father: what I'one thousand looking for is a candidate who will make me and my family feel safe, do something about the cost of living and reduce the charges for small businesses. She is credible, she has confidence and I admire her tenacity, but there are things in her programme I'm not so certain most."
His view is not uncommon. For many French people, the Le Pen name is no longer viewed with disdain. If, as expected, Le Pen does enough to achieve the second circular on 24 Apr, Macron will face up the biggest political fight of his career to continue her out of the Élysée Palace.
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Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/09/france-election-marine-le-pen-national-rally-far-right
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