We’ll follow Britain to freedom, says Le Pen

NATIONAL FRONT

We’ll follow Britain to freedom, says Le Pen

Adam Sage, Lyons

February 6 2017, 12:01am, The Times

Marine Le Pen soaks up the applause of a partisan crowd in Lyons yesterday. She told the party faithful that “the impossible is becoming possible” — and vowed to “end the nightmare” of EU membership

ARNOLD JEROCKI/EPA

Share
Save

Marine Le Pen told cheering crowds yesterday that the popular anger that led to the vote by Britain to leave the EU and Donald Trump’s election would sweep her to the French presidency.

The National Front leader, launching her presidential campaign amid a sea of tricolour flags in a conference hall in Lyons, portrayed herself as the latest beneficiary of a worldwide uprising against the established order — and was eager to quash fears that her party was incapable of obtaining a majority.

“People are waking up against the oligarchy. The impossible is becoming possible. Presidents like Donald Trump are not only being elected but they are respecting their promises,” she said. “Britain has set a path to freedom with Brexit. The wind of history has turned and it will carry us to the summit.”

The stakes are high for Ms Le Pen, who has ditched core Front policies such as a commitment to reinstate the death penalty in an attempt to lure middle-of-the-road voters.

The strategy has brought the far right closer to power in France than at any time since it collaborated with Hitler. The party has 2,000 local councillors, runs more than 15 local authorities and is almost certain to add to its two MPs in parliamentary elections this year.

Ms Le Pen’s hopes have been bolstered by the crises besetting mainstream French parties. François Fillon, candidate for the centre-right Republicans, is embroiled in a damaging scandal over claims that he used €1 million of taxpayers’ money to employ his wife and children in fictitious jobs. Benoît Hamon, representing the deeply unpopular ruling Socialist party, is running on a radical far-left manifesto.

With the Paris establishment in turmoil, polls predict that Ms Le Pen will triumph in the first round of the presidential election this spring — but will lose the second to Emmanuel Macron, who is standing as an independent moderate. Her challenge is to see him off by shoring up her bedrock support while wooing the floating voters.

“The future of France as a free nation depends upon the outcome of this election,” she said in her speech to 3,500 people inside the hall, with 1,500 more gathered outside.

“The choice that voters have is a choice of civilisation. Are our children going to live in a free and democratic country that respects our values? Will they even have the right to speak our language?” she asked as she denounced, amid booing and hissing from the audience, the choice of an English-language slogan — Made for Sharing — for the Paris bid for the 2024 Olympics.

Like Mr Trump in the US, Ms Le Pen casts herself as a leader determined to protect her land from both migration and economic globalisation. She said that she would fight the first by “intelligent protectionism and economic patriotism” and then by expelling illegal immigrants and foreigners convicted of crimes. “Two ideologies want to enslave our country: financial totalitarianism and the totalitarianism of Islamic fundamentalism,” she said. Her supporters chanted: “On est chez nous” (this is our home).

Ms Le Pen’s pledge is to reduce net immigration from 40,000 a year to 10,000. She said this would liberate funds to help French citizens with measures such as tax cuts and welfare benefits for low-paid workers. Immigrants would be forced to adopt French customs, she insisted: “If they want to live like they live in their own country, they merely need to stay at home.”

She promised to hold a referendum on France’s EU membership within six months of coming to power. If Brussels agreed to transfer sovereignty to France — which would include a return to the franc in place of the euro — she would back the Remain campaign, she said. If not, she would “ask the French to end this nightmare and to become free again”.

“The EU is a failure,” she added.