Le Pen party split on whether to embrace euro after election loss
Deputy threatens to quit over currency pledge as parties prepare for National Assembly election
A ROW erupted within Marine Le Pen’s Front National yesterday about whether the far-right party should drop its plans to ditch the euro as her powerful vice president threatened to quit over the issue.
Tensions have mounted within the far-right party since Ms Le Pen’s defeat in last Sunday’s presidential run-off against Emmanuel Macron, who won two-thirds of the vote.
These have been exacerbated by the departure of Ms Le Pen’s niece Marion Maréchal-le Pen, 27, seen as a rising star in the party.
Meanwhile, Mr Macron’s new party, La République en March (Republic on the Move), unveiled several hundred candidates for key parliamentary elections. More than half have never held a political post and half are women.
Mr Macron, 39, wants greater integration with Europe while Ms Le Pen, 48, pledged to return to the franc and to hold a referendum on leaving the EU within six months.
Gilbert Collard, a member of Ms Le Pen’s inner circle, said the French clearly expressed their desire to keep the European single currency.
“For us, the question of the euro is over. The people held their referendum last Sunday. Marine must listen to that message,” he told Le Parisien.
But Florian Philippot, the FN vice president, threatened to quit the party if it abandoned its euro strategy.
“I am not here to hang on to a job at all costs and to defend the opposite of my deepest convictions. I will always fight for the independence of my country,” he told RMC radio.
Regarding the euro debate, he added: “I don’t mind the question being raised. But I think we lose a lot of credibility. Those who think we gain from this are making a mistake.” While surveys suggest many French are sceptical of the EU, a large majority want to keep the euro.
The FN is still reeling from Ms Maréchal-le Pen’s decision to leave politics – at least temporarily – to spend more time with her family.
Her grandfather and FN co-founder Jean-marie Le Pen warned “This could cost Marine dear” in next month’s parliamentary elections. The FN hopes to win up to 60 seats in the two-round elections on June 11 and 18.
Mr Macron’s party unveiled 428 candidates for the legislative elections, which will decide whether the former banker can carry out labour reforms or becomes a “lame duck” president.
Some 52 per cent were from all walks of civil society, which Richard Ferrand, its secretary general, heralded as “the definitive return of citizens to the heart of (French) political life”.
However, the list was incomplete and contained no heavyweight centreright figures, despite Mr Macron’s stated aim of creating a party spanning the reformist Left-right divide.
Only 24 of the candidates are currently MPS in France’s 577-seat parliament, all of them Socialist.
Some 149 candidates are missing from the full list, with Mr Ferrand saying the remainder would be announced next Wednesday. By that stage, Mr Macron will likely have appointed a prime minister. Should that person be a moderate Right-winger this may lead to more conservatives joining his ranks.
Apparently with that in mind, the party has not yet named candidates in at least eight constituencies home to potentially compatible conservatives, including Bruno Le Maire, a former Europe minister under Nicolas Sarkozy.
Mr Macron’s party faced a conundrum after Socialist ex-prime minister Manuel Valls announced he would stand for the new president’s party in his historic power base of Evry.
While the party said he didn’t meet the “criteria”, in a face-saving move it promised not to field a candidate against Mr Valls in his home constituency on condition he ran as an ally.
Some 19,000 people had applied to become candidates.
A Harris Interactive poll yesterday suggested Mr Macron and his centrist allies will reap the largest share of the vote, taking 29 per cent versus 20 per cent each for the conservative Republicans and the FN. It did not forecast how many seats each party would win.