Marine Le Pen

Marine Le Pen

Marine Le Pen (5 August, 1968) is the candidate for President of France for the Front National, a French political party, in the Spring 2017 elections. Her campaign program prioritizes the national interests of France and exit from the eurozone, and emphasizes immigration and security, as well as socioeconomic issues and the sovereignty of the French state, on matters of currency, borders, the economy, and the rule of law.

As the nominee in 2012 for President of France the FN won a surprisingly large 20% of the vote in the election on April 22.

In 2015 as president of the FN, Marine fired her father Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of the FN from any position or leadership. She has led a movement of "de-demonization of the Front National" with renovated positions and new ideas, purging members accused of Petainism, racism, and antisemitism. Marshall Petain headed unoccupied Vichy France during World War II and Charles DeGaulle was its main opposition head.

In 2016, she was ranked as second-most influential MEP in the European Parliament by Politico, behind the President of the European Parliament, an ex-Westphalian mayor with low name recognition.

Family Life

Ms. Le Pen has 3 children and also has 2 sisters, Ms. Marie-Caroline Le Pen and Ms. Yann-Marechal Le Pen.

Administrative positions

Ms. Le Pen was born on 5 August 1968. She graduated with a lawyer's diploma in 1992 and from 1998 to 2004 lead the legal service of the FN. From 2000 onwards she was a member of the political bureau of the FN, and in the 2003 FN congress in Nice, was elected as one of the 8 vice-presidents. In 2007, she was the strategy advisor for the presidential campaign of Mr Le Pen in the 2007 French presidential elections.

In 2003 she became the chairwoman of the Generations Le Pen organization, a youth organization of the FN to promote the thought and works of Jean-Marie Le Pen.

Election Candidate

Polling data 6 weeks prior to the April 2017 French elections.
Source:Vox

She was elected to the European parliament in the 2004 European elections. In 2004 she ran for office in the Ile-De-France in the Regional elections, getting into the second round with 11%. She has also run for the legislative seat representing the city of Henin-Beaumont in the Nord Pas De Calais area in France in the legislative elections of 2002 and 2007. She got into the second round in the 2007 June legislative elections, and Ms. Le Pen gained 42% of the vote, the best result of the FN in the legislative elections of 2007, the only FN candidate to get into the second round. She was a candidate in Henin-Beaumont for the municipal elections in March 2008.

In the French Presidential Election 2012 Le Pen received 17.90%.

Violence against Ms. Le Pen

Ms. Le Pen has been the target of violence - although not directed at her alone, the Le Pen family was a target when Mr. Le Pen's home in Paris was bombed in 1976. In the June 2007 legislative elections following the announcement of her 42% showing, some youths decided to attack her car with projectiles. They have been brought to court for this behavior. More recently, she was aggressed on 23 September 2007 by 2 youths with a gun, and they fired a shot. Fortunately, she was evacuated by her bodyguard, and the youths have been identified, and have been deported from the Nord-Pas-De-Calais department.

Censorship against Le Pens supporters

Facebook suspended 30,000 accounts in France a mere ten days before its national election in 2017, in censorship of supporters of Marine Le Pen

See also

• European migrant crisis