Paris – Le Pen’s Father Criticizes Her Presidential Campaign As She Steps Back From Party

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    Marine Le Pen (R), French National Front (FN) political party leader and candidate for French 2017 presidential election and her bodyguard Thierry Legier (C) shakes hands with a local shopkeeper as she leaves the haidresser in front of her campaign headquarters in Paris, France, April 24, 2017 the day after the first round of presidential elections where Le Pen ended in second place behind En Marche ! movement candidate.   REUTERS/Charles PlatiauParis – French far-right veteran Jean-Marie Le Pen said on Tuesday his daughter Marine, who faces centrist Emmanuel Macron in a May 7 presidential runoff, should have campaigned more aggressively for Sunday’s first round, following the example of Donald Trump.

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    With 7.5 million votes, Marine Le Pen beat the National Front party’s previous election record on Sunday but failed to pip pro-EU Macron to the first place.

    The intervention by her father follows her announcement on Monday that she plans to step back from day-to-day management of the far-right party he founded ahead of the runoff and marks the latest tussle between the two of them over its future direction.

    “I think her campaign was too laid-back. If I’d been in her place I would have had a Trump-like campaign, a more open one, very aggressive against those responsible for the decadence of our country, whether left or right,” 88-year-old Jean-Marie Le Pen told RTL radio.

    The two have been at odds since Marine Le Pen launched moves to clean the National Front’s image of xenophobic associations in the run-up to the campaign for the 2017 presidency.

    Jean-Marie Le Pen shocked the world in 2002 by qualifying for the second round of the presidential election and then went on to lose in a landslide to conservative Jacques Chirac.

    He was frequently accused of making xenophobic and anti-Semitic statements and Le Pen expelled him from the party in 2015, though as the party’s founder he remains a well-known figure and represents a body of opinion in the party.

    In another sign of his influence, the National Front has borrowed about 6 million euros from a political fundraising association he heads.

    Marine Le Pen’s decision to take a leave of absence from the day-to-day management of the party appeared to be an attempt to portray herself as being above the narrow world of National Front politics and broaden her appeal to the wider electorate ahead of the crucial runoff vote.

    Her program calls for sharp curbs on immigration and on the rights of immigrants living in France, as well as the expulsion of foreigners under suspicion of having militant Islamist links.

    But she is seeking all the same to distance herself from the toxic legacy of her father and the xenophobic and anti-semitic undertones of his previous campaigns.

    Under France’s Fifth Republic, the president is the head of state, very much like a monarch in other countries, a role described by founder Charles De Gaulle as being above party politics – something Le Pen may have had in mind in her Monday night statement.

    She may also be seeking to play Macron at his own game, as the 39-year old centrist has refused to join mainstream parties, and consistently described his “En Marche!” (Onwards!) party structure as a “movement” transcending the left-right divide.


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    6 years ago

    Sounds like a great candidate to me. Why should she be held accountable for her dad? And for French Jews murdererd by ruthless Muslim beasts anyone tough on those animals is crucial

    hashomer
    hashomer
    6 years ago

    Well at least the Orange Beast supports the nazi backed holocaust denier LePen. Her ‘France for the French’ vichy slogan was the death knell for 80,000 French Yidden, not to mention the brave Resistance tortured and murdered by the Gestapo.