Summer 2017 Marine Le Pen, the leader of the French far right, is campaigning for the French parliamentary elections with a radical program and quite faithful to the line of the party created by her father, National Front (FN).
The party specifically proposed leaving the euro, suspending the Schengen agreements allowing free movement – a suspension subject to a referendum vote – and moving the retirement age to 60.
The most controversial points concerned immigration: additional taxes for foreign workers and the halving of legal immigration to France.
At the end of these parliamentary elections, the FN won 9% of the vote, i.e. 8 seats in the National Assembly.
Seven years later, the FN became the National Assembly (RN), and Marine Le Pen became president, says the Madrid daily El Mundo.
With already 88 parliamentary seats won in the 2022 parliamentary elections the party is now aiming for an absolute majority (for that it needs 289 seats out of 577) in the parliamentary elections on June 30 and July 7, 2024. And, in order to achieve a large margin, it has decided to tone down its speech.
A strategic departure
His program does not include “Neither leaving the euro nor leaving Schengen”, analyzes conservative daily.
As for the pension, it finally increased to 66 years “for the French who started working at the age of 24 and paid contributions for forty-two years”.
As for immigration, the idea is rather to keep national preferences (the French in the first place).
This is exactly what Marine Le Pen wanted, according to the Spanish media, who see it as the pinnacle of the process “demonization” from RN, “perfected by his leader for a whole decade”.
Already until name change the first sketch of the line she drew on the dark past of the party and her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, known for his racist and aggressive outbursts.
Then by choice to take Jordan Bardella as runner-up, This one “ideal 28-year-old son-in-law” professional experience in polishing one’s image.
Leaving angry subjects paid off on all levels, as much as in the local establishment so far limited to certain specific regions, only in rapprochement with other parties, such as the Republican right in alliance with Eric Ciotti.
This is all very similar strategy of the Italian Giorgia Meloni Note El Mundo. Coming from the post-fascist Fratelli d’Italia party, Meloni used her image as a Christian mother close to the people to seduce, while playing a consensual leader at the European level.
Over the years, the French far right has “watered down his most radical proposals in order to reach the gates of power”, concludes El Mundo.
Without the famous “sanitary cordon”, Or “front against Le Pen”, can do much about it now.