France’s far-right party now ‘adult’ and needs name change: Le Pen

PARIS: France’s far-right leader Marine Le Pen said on Friday her National Front party needs a name change because it has become “adult” and ready to govern.

Nine months after Le Pen was defeated by centrist Emmanuel Macron for president in a bruising battle between nationalists and globalists, the FN is struggling to rebound.

As FN president, she said she would propose a new name for the party at its conference on Sunday.

“The National Front has become adult ... its nature has changed. It has gone from a party first of protest in its youth, then an opposition party to a party of government,” Le Pen said on French television.

The FN “must acquire the culture of alliances... the culture of a governing party and changing its name is one of the ways to let it be known,” she said. Le Pen goes into the conference weakened by her poor performance in a final TV debate against Macron, which raised questions about her fitness to lead the world’s fifth-biggest economy.

She defended her far-right party’s stance against immigration and in defense of French culture and security.

The trained lawyer, who took over the FN leadership from her father Jean-Marie Le Pen in 2011, is running unopposed for a third term at the helm at the conference starting Saturday in the northern city of Lille.

The high point will come Sunday when Le Pen will announce a proposed new name for the party, turning a page on the anti-Semitic, openly racist Front of her former paratrooper dad.

“Without a name change we will not be able to forge alliances. And without alliances we will never be able to take power,” she told a party gathering in the eastern Alsace region last month.