THESE SHOULD be propitious times for the National Front. French voters go to the polls next Sunday in the first round of regional elections with President Nicolas Sarkozy hobbled by consistently low approval ratings. The opposition Socialist Party is riven by internal division, unemployment is rising and three of the National Front’s signature issues – immigration, Islam and insecurity – have been dominating the headlines for the past six months.
And yet few expect the far-right party led by Jean-Marie Le Pen to take advantage of the auspicious climate this month. Since Mr Le Pen sensationally reached the presidential run-off in 2002, a number of influential members have defected, while in the 2007 legislative elections the party won no seats and its share of the vote – just under 4.3 per cent – was one of the lowest in its history.
Because of its heavy debts, the Front National is running a shoestring campaign. And if, as expected, the abstention rate is high in this month’s elections, the working class vote – traditionally good to the FN – will be among the worst hit.
Mr Le Pen, who is now 81, has signalled that he intends to step down soon as leader, and one of the front-runners to succeed him is his daughter Marine, who is standing in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region. She acknowledges that the party’s standing in the opinion polls (most put its support at 9-10 per cent) is far from the 14.7 per cent it attained in the regional elections in 2004. But this would not be the first time that the party has been written off.
“For the last two years we have been buried,” she says. “The media and political analysts have overseen a burial ceremony. They have brought the flowers and the wreaths and said, we’re done with the National Front, and I must say that many of them added ‘good riddance’.”
It is essential for the party to demonstrate that “not only is it not dead” but that it has returned to “the political foreground”, she adds.
That will involve familiarising voters with the party’s social and economic policies and breaking out of the “caricatures” drawn by its opponents, Ms Le Pen believes.
She is critical of the “ultra-liberalism” that sees the world merely as a pool of workers, while she calls the hiring of undocumented workers “a new form of slavery”, which should be heavily punished.
Should Marine Le Pen succeed her father, many believe she may try to soften the party’s edges and broaden its appeal. Some predict she would change its name, for instance.
While Ms Le Pen suggests the FN is “a living organism” that must continue to adapt, her criticism of current French immigration policy is unwavering. It is “absurd” for France to continue admitting large numbers when five million people are unemployed in the country.
“We have incredible deficits. We have colossal debt. We have to stop admitting people for whom we no longer have anything to offer. I think that’s the honest thing to do – honest to French people and honest to foreigners.”