President 2022: Marine Le Pen, Too True or Not?

If an important date is a turning point for the party Marine Le Pen, it’s definitely 1st June 2018. On that day, the National Front turns into a national rally. 80% of the members are in favor of it and have expressed it by post. The name change is part of a projected overhaul of the party, which began shortly after the failure of the 2017 presidential election.

During the speech announcing the results of this vote, Marine Le Pen assured us, this change of name “closes a chapter in the history of our national movement which was opened forty-five years ago, but it is better to open another which, I believe, would be no less glorious“With this change of name, the party also hopes to be able to lift the psychological brake that some French people have voted for them.

New name, new party? No, the past is not ruled out, but Marine Le Pen certainly wants to soften the image of her party. Marine Le Pen’s National Rally is no longer Jean-Marie Le Pen’s National Front: that’s the message the party wants to convey.

Asked by the RTBF in June 2021, MEP Thierry Mariani Rasemblmente Nationale said: “Today the party has completely changed. The first Marine Le Pen is not Jean-Marie Le Pen. Marine Le Pen has never been convicted of racist comments. That’s it, end of story,

Far right wing or nationalist right? French media diversion

But then, should we still qualify the National Rally as a right-wing party? The debate in the French newsroom doesn’t stop. The French Press Agency and the daily Le Monde have decided to continue listing the party as such. The answer is less clear in favor of France Télévision which does not give a watchdog to its teams, explains Valérie Lerouge, one of its journalists. Recorded during the campaign in the RTBf Voix De France podcast,The most commonly used term is the nationalist right. Because if we take the history of the extreme right, we still generally speak of a racist, anti-Semitic, anti-homosexual party. The far right brings us back to fascism and we are no longer in it!,

The French Television journalist admits in the podcast that Marine Le Pen has not denied the party legacy of his father – known for his racism and homosexuality – but he deserves it: “We cannot suspect Marine Le Pen of being a racist. It is not a racial problem for him, it is a problem of foreigners who come to receive work or allowances for the French. He is not anti-Jewish. He is not necessarily homophobic, as he has many friends and lawmakers around him who are gay.,

The question of whether the National Rally is an far-right party is really difficult to decide, as far as a far-right party is generally accepted, there is no such definition. Some observers argue that the National Rally is the most right-wing party of those represented in parliament, and this aspect justifies the use of the term far-right. However, the possible arrival of elected officials from Eric Zemour’s political movement in a few months could make it obsolete. win again! There’s more to the right than the national rally.

a discriminatory program

Beyond the debate over words and labels, it is certain that the question of immigration remains the main business of the national rally. Purchasing power and social propositions have often been put forward by Marine Le Pen in the campaign, but the first of his “22 measures by 2022” focuses on immigration.