There is a crucial difference between the gruff former paratrooper Jean-Marie and his public relations-savvy daughter who took over the party in 2011. Le Pen senior, who co-founded the party in 1972, nostalgic for colonial Algeria and Vichy, unapologetic in his belief in the “inequality of the races” and who would later be convicted more than 15 times for hate-speech and contesting crimes against humanity, has always been an outsider. Delighted to be detested, proud to be subject of a protest vote, he never wanted power. Marine Le Pen very much wants power, and her ambitions go right to the presidency.
The Front National’s large election gains under her leadership, topping the polls in the European elections last year, building its largest ever grassroots base with new mayors and councillors, winning MPs and, for the first time, senators, followed her drive to “detoxify” the party and move it away from any racist, jack-booted, antisemitic imagery of the past. She has sought to build an unshakable powerbase across France by making the far-right movement appear more palatable, with her eye on the Elysée. Polls have shown she could knock out a mainstream candidate to make it to the final-round presidential run-off in 2017.
The party’s final score in last month’s local elections, however, in which it won a quarter of the national vote but failed to win outright control of a single localdépartement, showed there is still a glass ceiling, a break on Marine Le Pen’s quest to be seen as a normal party like any other. To keep its momentum, the Front National must make clear gains in the regional elections at the end of this year. To do that it will need to win over people who prefer the traditional, mainstream right. Papa Le Pen, with his inflammatory views, is increasingly seen as a spanner in the works.
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