PARIS: Far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who needs to have a graft conviction overturned to seize her best chance at the French presidency, risks seeing her life’s work upended if she loses her appeal.
Le Pen took over leadership of the National Front (FN) in 2011 from her father Jean-Marie, who co-founded France’s main postwar far-right movement.
In a move to distance it from the legacy of her father, who openly made antisemitic and racist statements, she renamed the party the National Rally (RN) and embarked on a policy she dubbed “de-demonization.”
The work bore fruit. In snap legislative polls in summer 2023, the RN emerged as the largest single party in the National Assembly — although without the outright majority it had targeted.
That gave Le Pen’s party power over French politics it had never before enjoyed, which she used by backing a no-confidence vote that toppled the government of prime minister Michel Barnier later in the year.
