Unstoppable rise of Devil’s Daughter Le Pen
MARINE Le Pen was once described by her father, the Holocaust denier Jean-Marie Le Pen, as an ‘ideal physical specimen for this part of France’. He didn’t actually say, in so many words, that – with her blonde hair and blue eyes – she matched an Aryan archetype, but everyone knew what he meant.
Last Sunday, at the Élysée Lounge Madame Le Pen, in a low-cut little black number and stilettos, certainly attracted more than a few admiring glances as she toted a champagne flute. She had every reason to celebrate. The Front National, under her leadership, had just triumphed in the European elections.
One in four French voters voted for the FN, once synonymous with shaven-headed thugs and Third Reich nostalgia.
The result makes it the most popular party in France at the moment, and Madame Le Pen one of the most powerful — some might say, most danger- ous – women in the country. At 45, she stands alone as the only female leader of a farright party in Europe.
Le Pen insists she has ‘dedemonised’ (her word) the party. Not everyone believes her but the Front National won an unprecedented 24 MEPs.
The Élysée Lounge was not chosen by accident for the party; it is situated just yards from the Élysée Palace, the presidential residence Madame Le Pen covets. ‘The result was historic,’ she told the Mail. ‘Now we are preparing for government.’
The vagaries of the French electoral system mean that such an outcome is still unlikely. But, then, who could have predicted that Marine Le Pen, daughter of the man who formed the Front National in the Seventies, would have pulled off such a sweeping victory on the European stage after taking over the helm from him just three years ago?
The FN voters I spoke to were happy to stand up and be counted. No one minded giving their name; years ago they would have insisted on anonymity.
Le Pen’s strategy has been simple but effective. Like Sarah Palin, she plays on her image as an outsider, derided by the establishment but in touch with the concerns of ordinary people. She has three children (Jehanne, 15, and 13-year-old twins Louis and Mathilde) and has been through two divorces. Although she now has a partner, she has spoken about the problems of being a single mother.
Welfare and social benefits, she says, should be limited to French nationals. But the antisemitic rhetoric of the past has gone, at least in public. Instead, Le Pen opposes the ‘Islamisation of France’ in terms of a threat to France’s core secular values. Seven million Muslims live in France, prompting Le Pen to compare Muslims praying in the streets outside overflowing mosques to the Nazi occupation.
‘Marine dares to say what many people are thinking,’ said Stephanie Beaulie, an accountant, who is typical of
‘My father is the man who shaped me’
many Le Pen has won over. ‘She stands up for the country.’
The resurgence of the Front National under Marine Le Pen has coincided with a perfect storm of political scandals and economic stagnation.
The Socialist government is hamstrung by the flagging presidency of Francois Hollande. Seemingly, there is no real alternative to Hollande as the mainstream right was discredited by ex-president
Nicolas Sarkozy, who faces a criminal probe into claims that Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi funded his rise to power.
Her critics question her populist credentials. They point to the Le Pen family home in the Paris suburb of Saint Cloud, a €6 m mansion situated on a private estate behind 20ft gates. She also has a holiday home in the fishing village her father grew up in.
And her father – a man who once described the Holocaust as a mere ‘detail’ in history – is very much an influence. When, a few years ago, she was asked to identify something from her childhood that formed her, she replied: ‘20kg of dynamite.’
In 1976, aged eight, a bomb tore through the front of the family’s apartment building in Paris while she, her parents and two older sisters were asleep. They escaped unhurt. But as the daughter of a greatly reviled politician, she grew up in an atmosphere of fear and intimidation
Aged 18, she joined the Front National, and pursued a career as a lawyer before becoming head of the FN’s legal department in 1998.
In 2011 she took over the leadership of the party from her father, who still represents the ‘rebranded’ FN in the European Parliament.
For her part, Marine Le Pen insists her father is ‘misunderstood’. She was part of his campaign team during 2002 presidential elections when she defended him to the hilt as she has done throughout her life. ‘Try as I might,’ she said, ‘I can’t find any point of difference with my father’s programme. I am 100 per cent Le Pen through and through.’
It’s pronouncements like that which have earned Marine Le Pen nicknames such as ‘The Clone’ and ‘The Devil’s Daughter’.
All such talk this week was forgotten. Down the road from the Elysée Lounge, Marine Le Pen posters festooned the Chez Ton Ton café.
‘Everyone is fed up with all the other parties,’ said Jacques Dubois, 68, a softly spoken retired civil servant. ‘They are incompetent and dishonest. So, yes, I am very much in favour of Marine Le Pen.’
But we should not forget a vote for this sleek blonde is also a vote for her father. as Marine admits, ‘He is the man of my life because he shaped me; he transmitted to me his values.’