Marine Le Pen failed at the gates of power, again coming up against the glass ceiling of the far right in France, but with 42% of the vote according to the first estimates, she carried her political family to the height of an election. presidential since World War II.
Candidate for the third time for the supreme magistracy, the 53-year-old former lawyer, daughter of the historic figure of the French far right Jean-Marie Le Pen, obtained 10 points more than in the 2017 election, and more than double his father’s score in 2002 against Jacques Chirac.
But she came up against the reflex of the “dam against the far right” in the home stretch, which pushed voters to vote for Mr. Macron, even by “obligation”, so as not to try the experience of a victory of Mrs Le Pen, which would have had major consequences for France, nationally and internationally.
The strategy of “de-demonization” patiently pursued by Ms. Le Pen for 10 years seemed to be bearing fruit.
The candidate has smoothed and softened her image and her speech, displaying the reassuring face of a “mother” concerned about defending the “most vulnerable” and the purchasing power of the French.
But, on the merits, its program has remained just as radical, putting at the heart the “national priority” in the face of immigrants whose number it intends to drastically reduce and limit access to social benefits. It also wants to expel illegal immigrants, foreign criminals and delinquents, those suspected of radicalization as well as foreigners who have been unemployed for more than a year.
Ms. Le Pen’s “national priority” also applies in the field of law. It intends to enshrine the primacy of French law in the Constitution. To the detriment of a Europe that she says she no longer wants to leave, as in 2017, but towards which she harbors a marked mistrust. Many commentators believe that the implementation of his program would have led to a “Frexit in disguise”.
Get rid of the father
A lawyer by training, Marine Le Pen built her regional presence in the north of the country, long won over to the left, then took over the presidency of Jean-Marie Le Pen’s party, the National Front, in early 2011, gradually pushing aside the old barons, and patiently deconstructing what the patriarch had built with anti-Semitic or racist harangues, sometimes condemned in court.
The “de-demonization” of the FN went as far as the exclusion in 2015 of the father, whose remarks were too divisive to allow a national victory. “I adored this man,” she says. “I fought a lot for him but at some point it had to stop.”
The FN with a sinister reputation became “National Rally” in 2018, and has since campaigned on its first name, Marine, preferred to its heavily connoted surname.
She blurred the lines, proclaiming herself the “best shield” of French Jews, raising the Republic and secularism as a banner against “Islamist fundamentalism”, but judging Islam “compatible with the Republic”.
After her failure in 2017, and a disastrous electoral debate between two rounds where her unpreparedness and her feverishness had appeared obvious in the face of Emmanuel Macron, Ms. Le Pen patiently recovered and polished her speech.
Presenting herself as a unifying candidate for “Quiet France”, facing an Emmanuel Macron whose “brutality” and “arrogance” she has constantly denounced.
“Complacency with Russia”
First worried by the breakthrough of another far-right candidate, Eric Zemmour, she actually took advantage of the radical and outrageous speech of the former polemicist.
By rehashing her identity, anti-immigration and anti-Islam themes, Mr. Zemmour (7% in the first round) helped to refocus and moderate the image of Mrs. Le Pen, who campaigned on purchasing power, a concern first for the French at a time when the war in Ukraine caused prices to soar.
Internationally, Marine Le Pen is accused by her adversaries of complacency with Putin’s Russia even though she condemned the invasion of Ukraine.
She supports the idea of “anchoring Russia to Europe”, so that this country “does not go into the arms of China”. The candidate, who has forged personal ties with Russia, has also cultivated close ties with Central European leaders, including Viktor Orban in Hungary.
During the televised debate between the two rounds, Mr. Macron accused her of being “dependent” on Moscow, in particular because of a loan of 9 million taken out by the National Rally from a Russian bank. She vigorously denied this, calling herself a “totally free woman”.