Marine Le Pen: Frances' Fatal Attraction?
Marine, the president of the National Front also distances herself from some of her father's more extremist views. She hasn't repeated the outrageous statements on the Second World War which her father was prone to make. She doesn't speak of the gas chambers as a "detail" but on the contrary she states unambiguously that "the camps were the height of barbarity" and prefers to glorify "the resistance of 1940."
But it's what she has to say on the economic crisis that is really attracting people. She has added a social dimension to the usual National Front project. Many working class French, especially those disorientated by globalization and relocation are lured by her simplistic answers. She advocates getting out of the European Union and returning to the old national currency, the franc. To fight against the closure of factories, Marine Le Pen has a radical solution: protectionism. "Our country," she says using frightening rhetoric, "is in the process of underdevelopment, of Third Worldization."
The vast majority of economists are agreed that the solutions advocated by Marine Le Pen would be a severe blow to French finances. But Le Pen prospers on a climate of mistrust surrounding the French political class.
Of course Marine Le Pen is also pushing those old themes which her father exploited so successfully: The fight against immigration illegal and legal and defence of national identity. She has also added inflammatory views on Islam, comparing street prayers to an "occupying army." ,,, This outrageous language has been resonating with French people who feel frightened by social change and who feel ignored by current politicians. She has been playing on their longing for a closed society, the France of the past.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arnaud-bevilacqua/marine-le-pen-election_b_1216976.html
Le Pen's approach has been "resonating with French people who feel frightened by social change" including immigration. That kind of sounds like our own "we want our country back" teabaggers.
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