Sat, Apr 01, 2023 page6

• French turmoil over pensions raises Le Pen’s profile

  • FP, PARIS
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  As violent protests sweep crisis-hit France, the prospect of National Rally leader Marine Le Pen coming to power is being taken more seriously than ever, to her evident delight.

  “At least I’ve succeeded in winning over my political opponents,” she told reporters with a smile during an interview last week. “They seem to spend their lives telling everyone that I will be the next president.”

  “Now it’s up to me to convince a majority of the country,” she added.

  

  French National Rally leader Marine Le Pen attends a party event in Paris on Tuesday last week.

  Photo: AFP

  French President Emmanuel Macron’s proposal to raise the minimum retirement age to 64 has triggered the biggest demonstrations in a generation and a fierce backlash against the French government and politicians in general.

  Le Pen has condemned the change, but has kept a low profile since January, seeking to project an image of sobriety compared with the government’s raucous and outraged opponents on the left.

  While lawmakers from the France Unbowed party have repeatedly broken parliamentary rules and backed protesters during the violent clashes, Le Pen’s National Rally lawmakers have appeared disciplined in comparison.

  The leader of Macron’s party in parliament, Aurore Berge, last month complained that all Le Pen’s lawmakers needed to do was “stay quiet and they look respectable”.

  French Minister of the Interior and Overseas Gerald Darmanin on Thursday accused France Unbowed President Jean-Luc Melenchon “of making the election of Madame Le Pen possible.”

  Researcher and pollster Chloe Morin said that “almost all” French politicians she spoke to said they feared Le Pen coming to power.

  The prospect of the far-right leader succeeding Macron at the next election in 2027 is said by allies to keep the 45-year-old French president awake at night.

  “It’s the issue that haunts Emmanuel,” a senior lawmaker who knows the president well said on condition of anonymity. “He doesn’t talk about it, but he thinks about it.”

  Macron positioned himself as a bulwark against populism and far-right nationalism when he first ran for office in 2017, promising voters that he would address the anti-elite anger that has fed support for the political extremes in France for decades.

  Seeking a second term in April last year, the former investment banker used the same arguments again, but defeated Le Pen by a much smaller margin.

  “He’s right to be worried,” Le Pen said. “The way he is ruling will enable political forces with the exact opposite approach to his to gain power.”

  Le Pen, a lawyer by profession, has run for president three times since in 2011 taking over her father’s party, which at the time was called the National Front.

  Although she has taken an anti-immigration stance and criticized Islam, she has moderated her message over the years and banished overtly racist party figures from the public eye.

  In last year’s elections, she focused on the rising cost of living and was rewarded with her highest ever score in a presidential election.

  Macron’s decision to ram the pensions reform through parliament on March 16 without a vote — a lawful, but contested move — has also given Le Pen the chance to revive other parts of her long-standing pitch to voters.

  She has proposed a referendum to settle the pension reform argument and, if elected, promises to organize other votes on issues ranging from immigration to electoral law.

  Opinion polls underscore the pro-Le Pen dynamics underway in French politics, but need to be interpreted with care, experts said.

  She is slightly more popular than Macron, but the margin is small. She also lags behind Edouard Philippe, who served as French prime minister during Macron’s first term. Philippe is the country’s most popular politician and is likely to run for president in 2027.

  Other polls show that if Macron were to dissolve the hung parliament, Le Pen’s party would be the biggest winner.

  However, some experts warn against jumping to conclusions about her prospects, given that she still unsettles many people and is perceived as weak on the economy, as well as inconsistent on foreign policy.
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