Marine Le Pen: Her father's daughter

By Shweta Desai

PARIS (AA) - Marine Le Pen, the National Rally party candidate now in the final stretch of her presidential campaign against Emmanuel Macron, is every bit a quintessential provocateur as her father Jean-Marie Le Pen – the patriarch of extreme-right politics in France, who harps on racism, immigration, and white nationalism.

Dubbed as an “heiress of the cult” and a “dynast” it is Le Pen's second time qualifying for the final round against Macron since 2017 when she lost by a substantial margin. But her three bids for the presidency have never brought her this close to victory. She received 23.1% of the votes in the first round, behind Macron's 27.8%.

Le Pen is having a moment of reckoning even as the majority of French remain stiffly opposed to the extreme right-wing movement. She has branded herself as a candidate for all French, ready to undertake the much-needed reforms, neglected by Macron to improve the lives of people.

Macron himself is navigating uncertain waters and is deeply despised, with nearly a third of left-leaning electorates preferring to shun the ballot than vote for him. The other half of the voters think Macron is as menacing as Le Pen. Many critics fear the combination of these factors will leave an overpowering mark in her favor.

- In the footsteps of her father

Le Pen’s advance to the final round evokes the political journey of her father Jean-Marie, who became the first far-right candidate two decades ago to qualify for the second round of the 2002 presidency. Jacques Chirac beat Jean-Marie in a resounding victory, but it was unimaginable for the French to see an extreme-right figure known for his racist, anti-Semitic statements, come so close to beating the odds.

Not any longer. The anti-immigration, pro-French rhetoric propagated by Jean Marie that was once accepted by a small group of electorates is now supported by a large number of voters. Le Pen has grown steadily in popularity and has come into her own since she took over the National Front in 2011 and changed its name to National Rally.

She expelled her father from the party in 2015 for repeating the notorious remark made in 1987 -- that Nazi gas chambers were just "a detail of World War II history" -- in a bid to clear its reputation as a racist, anti-Semitic, and xenophobic party.

While the party stays away from indulging in anti-Semitism, Le Pen has found a different set of the target audience to incite racial hatred on -- the Muslim minority. She has been on hate speech trial twice for comparing Muslim street prayers to the Nazi occupation of France and for posting graphic images of Daesh’s atrocities. She has claimed there are several areas in France that follow religious (Islamic) laws, described the veil or hijab as an Islamist uniform that breaches women's rights, and has vowed to ban its wearing in public.

- Same vine in a new bottle

Le Pen shares the same political agenda, “socially left, economically right, and French first,” on which the National Front was founded in 1972. She follows her father’s beliefs on immigration -- wants to ban the regularization of refugees without papers, deport convicted and unemployed foreigners -- reject America’s dominance, and blame EU policies for the economic and social scourge at home.

In her foreign policy vision, she wants a rapprochement between Moscow and NATO, withdrawal of France's membership from NATO, a softer exit from the EU by forming an alliance of like-minded countries, and an end to all cooperation with Germany, to reinforce a new strategic identity for France. Her affinity towards Russian President Vladimir Putin and Hungary’s autocratic leader Viktor Orban indicates that France would set on a diametrically opposite diplomatic course if she is elected.

Le Pen may have toned down her hardliner attitude and lowered the scandalous racist language to project herself as the “anti-establishment” candidate who can herald the widespread desire for change, but her political agenda remains populist and authoritarian.

- Here to stay

As in 2002, the French took to the streets to denounce Le Pen reaching the final round.

The left-wing and anti-Macron voters carried out demonstrations calling to block the votes against the extreme-right and rehashed the 2017 slogan “no to banker no to fascist” to “no to Macron, no to Le Pen” to reinforce their rejection of both candidates.

Yet, days before Sunday's final vote, the extreme-right is sensing victory with polling intentions for Le Pen hovering around 45%, as against Macron’s 55%.

While the outcome is still uncertain, neither Le Pen nor the far-right movement evokes taboos among voters. And by the looks of it, Le Pen will stay in the ring for a few more years.