National Front's rise to France's 'top party'

France’s National Front (FN), a kind of father-to-daughter family party, was co-founded by Jean-Marie Le Pen in the 1970s. It was popular under his leadership, however he was convicted several times on charges of racism or inciting racial hatred. When Jean-Marine took over the party’s leadership in 2011, she worked to banish the face of the FN’s far-right past. For example, as Stratfor points out, “she maintained the party’s stance opposing immigration, but she focused her criticism of immigrants on economic issues rather than racial terms.” But her attempts to re-brand the party were never going to sit well with its firebrand founder. Having led the party since 1972, Jean-Marie Le Pen made his mark on the French political scene. Out of five presidential attempts, he came the closest to the top job in 2002, making it to the second round of the elections, before losing out to Jacques Chirac. Comments he made about the Holocaust have been a constant source of embarrassment for Marine. “I am inclined to say that the gas chambers were a detail of the World War II history, it’s clear,” he said. Last June (2014), she acted to distance herself from her father’s comments about a French-Jewish singer, which seemed to refer to concentration camp incinerators. The final straw came with an interview in the far-right magazine Rivarol last April in which Jean-Marie defended his Holocaust comments, as well as WWII French leader of the Vichy regime Pétain and referred to Spanish-born Prime Minister Manuel Valls as an “immigrant.” His interview appeared to be a counter-attack on his daughter’s more conciliatory rhetoric on the subject of immigration. Jean-Marie Le Pen was eventually suspended from the party he co-founded. Paris Attacks While regional elections are perhaps the least significant in the French political calendar, the December 6 poll came just three weeks after the deadly attacks in Paris and Saint-Denis which have helped Le Pen’s popularity surge. French front-page reaction to the 1st round election results: (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.3"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));The shock breakthrough of the far right National Front in French regional elections has left the mainstream parties scrambling to counter the advance.Posted by euronews on Monday, December 7, 2015 French voters have been more concerned about their security and Europe’s migrant crisis than regional-specific issues since the attacks. As such, the ruling Socialists and the conservative Republicans find themselves for the first time trailing the FN in six out of 13 regions. A crucial second round of voting takes place next Sunday (December 13). The Socialists have already called on their candidates who came third place in battleground seats to withdraw, to enable strategic voting to block the National Front. Having to bow out of the race in some seats and leave a duel between the National Front and the opposition Republicans is a blow for the French President. Marine Le Pen has now declared her FN the country’s top party after it scored the most votes nationally, scoring almost 28 percent of Sunday’s (December 6)vote. Marine Le Pen’s extreme-right Front National picks up historic win in #FrenchElections: https://t.co/Z684uYTJY5 pic.twitter.com/X86othhGtd— Women in the World (@WomenintheWorld) December 7, 2015

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