PARIS – Marine Le Pen is still of extreme right? Arrived for the second time in the ballot, never so close to a victory for the presidential elections, the leader of the Rassemblement National refuses to be defined in this way, and says in a high voice that she wants to overcome the ancient opposition between right and left: in this is on the same line as Emmanuel Macron. The candidate for the Elysée describes next Sunday’s ballot as a challenge between “patriots and globalists”.
The 53-year-old former lawyer inherited from a far-right party in 2011, with a father convicted of denial and incitement to racist hatred. In these ten years, however, you have managed to clean up the image of the former Front National, at least in the eyes of many French people. Now that you have reached record levels in the polls, you have changed your name and renewed the leadership of the party, some researchers are wondering about the right political definition.
“In his speeches and in his program, I would not say that there are clear far-right markers, that is, anti-democratic and anti-republican” replies the political scientist Dominique Reynie, director of Fondapol. “When we talked about his father, there was no doubt,” Reynié notes recall the past of Jean Marie Le Pen, close to the Vichy regime and then to the pro-colonial militiamen during the Algerian war. “With her, there is no racist, anti-Semitic or homophobic discourse. Sometimes – continues the political scientist – I hear that you are far right because you want to reform the Constitution with a referendum. But that’s what General de Gaulle did ”.
Anti-Semitism, continues the political scientist, is absent from his speeches. “It is easier to find statements close to anti-Semitism in Mélenchon”. According to Reynié, one can rather speak of “a right populist, authoritarian e antieuropea”Which would be a problem for France. “But to say that Le Pen is far right is like saying that it is illegitimate. And if 45% of the French vote for her in the second round, it becomes an unmanageable situation, no more reconciliation is possible ”.
The extreme right specialist, Jean-Yves Camus, prefers to see today’s Rassemblement National as an expression of a “radical right”. “If we take up the concept of the extreme right with a clear fascist component, we cannot say that it corresponds to the National Rassemblement”. Camus knows the history of the National Front well and argues that the leaders linked to the history of the far right “are no longer there or are dead”.
It does not mean, adds Camus, that Le Pen’s program for the presidential election is not dangerous, starting with the “national preference” with which the Rassemblement National wants to give priority to French citizens for subsidies, social housing and work. A proposal that risks opening up a problem of constitutionality. “Despite having deputies and being within the institutional system, Le Pen has a program contrary to what jurists call the ‘constitutional block’ of our Republic”, notes Nicola Lebourgauthor of a far-right transnational research project for George-Washington University.
Net the judgment of Mark Lazar. “Le Pen steps forward with his face covered and presents himself as a smiling and nice woman who loves her cats. She is actually still far right. An extreme right with a human face “. The political scientist who teaches at Sciences Po and Luiss recalls that the leader has renounced the most shocking aspects of the political family from which she comes: anti-Semitism, defense of the Vichy regime, detestation of De Gaulle. “But her program includes typical far-right proposals.” Lazar also cites as an example the abolition of the ius soli and the “national preference” that the candidate wants to insert in the Constitution through a referendum, effectively introducing discrimination between French citizens and foreigners.
“It is a way to put into practice the old far-right slogan: France to the French,” observes the political scientist. “To organize this referendum, it would be necessary to overturn the Constitution, and some constitutional experts even speak of the risk of a ‘coup d’état’.” As for his social program, the scholar continues, it is a form of “social chauvinism”. much claimed by Scandinavian populists, the not-so-distant model could be that of popular illiberal democracies in the East.
“Currently – adds Lazar – Le Pen tries to hide his sympathy for Vladimir Putinbut remains close to Viktor Orban, with whom it shares many points in common, especially as regards Europe. Let’s make no mistake – this is the conclusion – Le Pen’s project is identity-oriented and nationalist ”.