The annual congress of France’s far-right National Front party has drawn to a close in Lyon.
Over the weekend, the party re-elected its leader Marine Le Pen with a 100 percent mandate although she was the only candidate. It also confirmed closer ties with Russia, and Marine Le Pen’s 24-year-old niece Marion Marechal-Le Pen was voted onto the party’s central committee.
Opinion polls suggest Le Pen will reach a second round run-off in the 2017 French presidential election as he father Jean-Marie did in 2002.
“Our ideas have become part of the public discourse. Our propositions are at the centre of political discussions, our dynamism is in all the conversations. At such a point, my dear friends, there is no longer any doubt in anyone’s minds that we will be in the second round the 2017 presidential election,” Marine Le Pen declared.
Euronews correspondent in Lyon Anne Devineaux says there were few confrontations of ideas at the Congress, but a plebiscite for Marine Le Pen. Sh adds that the undisputed leader of the National Front wants to be the head of a “de-demonized” party and believes more than ever she is in a position to win the 2017 presidential election.