M&C: PROFILE: Marine le Pen: the new, softer face of France's far-right

[pampango]

http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/europe/news/article_1612083.php/PROFILE-Marine-le-Pen-the-new-softer-face-of-France-s-far-right

Marine le Pen won two-thirds of the votes in a contest to succeed her father Jean-Marie, who led the party since founding it in 1972. Her victory over the only other candidate, Bruno Gollnisch, was announced on the final day of a party conference in the city of Tours. In an opinion poll published this week by Marianne magazine 20 per cent of the French said they could vote for her in next year's presidential elections, while 22 per cent said they supported FN ideas.

As a student and young lawyer she was also given a wide berth by her peers, who found Le Pen's brand of xenophobic politics distasteful. Her image is certainly softer than that of her former paratrooper father, a figure of loathing among a generation of immigrants and people of foreign origin with his horned-rimmed glasses, jeering grin and multiple convictions, including for assault and hate speech.

Instead she warns about what the FN sees as the 'islamization' of French society through Muslim immigration - a subject dear to right and far-right parties throughout Europe. She has also tapped into the growing disillusionment among some French with the euro and European Union to hammer a nationalist message about the alleged erosion of French sovereignty by the EU.

Despite the more palatable package, analysts see in Marine le Pen a chip off the old block. In December, she too revealed a taste for provocation when she declared that Muslims praying in the streets outside was like reliving a 'Nazi occupation.'