The candidate for the Presidency of the National Front (FN) is enjoying great success on her election tour. Supporters from the Cรดte d’Azur have overwhelmingly backed her for the succession of her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, as leader of the French right-wing movement.
“Unstoppable” is how British punters would describe Marine Le Pen’s positioning in the race for the National Front Presidency, set to take place in January 2011. This will also mark the start of another, even more significant race for the Presidential election in the spring of 2012, in which she currently holds 13% of the voting intentions, making her a formidable opponent for any alternative candidate.
She is the clear favorite (83% of FN sympathizers support her compared to 9% for her opponent Bruno Gollnisch/source Le Monde, June 9, 2010), and is strongly backed by the Party leadership, even though the outgoing President, Jean-Marie Le Pen, feigns impartiality as a matter of fatherly duty.
However, according to Alain Jamet, Vice-President of the FN: “Marine has retained the youthful energy to realize her ideals and has acquired the maturity that gives her a broad perspective and a strong political will.” What more is needed to understand where the heart lies?
Beyond her principles and political ideas, one must acknowledge this charming woman, who carries her forties with sporty elegance, has a strength and determination that make her a political beast and a formidable adversary to any opponent. More than through her words, her behavior shows her pleasure in being among the activists to preach her creed to those willing to listen, and how she does so with an eloquence that recalls her legal background and, clearly, a strong character.
This occurred on Saturday evening in Nice, in front of an audience of a few hundred already aligned with her cause, who were surely reassured in their support for the candidate that all polls predict as the overwhelming favorite for the FN Presidency election…and for the candidacy in the 2012 Presidential election.
“Of course, if I am elected President of the FN, I will naturally be our Movement’s candidate for the Presidential election because it is quite normal for ‘its’ President to represent our Movement in this election.”
Marine Le Pen captivated the assembly with her preferred set of political principles and targets: “globalism and Islamism,” the two keywords to which she attributes all the ills and problems affecting our society and France, and naturally her number one enemy, “Sarko the American”!
Concluding with a prediction for the 2011 Cantonal elections in this Nice territory, which she says will not be stingy in recognizing the FN’s policies and its candidates who will be announced in a few weeks: “The FN will play a major role just as the 2010 Regional elections suggested. Our candidates will be the disruptors of a majority increasingly out of touch with the population because they are too close to the interests of the CAC 40 and an opposition that is increasingly missing the mark. Our Party, popular and social, aims to be the interpreter of the true sentiments of the people!”
