Since the shock results of Britain’s referendum and the 2016 US election, France’s far-right National Front party is gaining confidence in the run-up to the 2017 general election.
Marine Le Pen, who has led the party since 2011, believes that Donald Trump’s success in the election will highly increase her chances of winning because it “makes the French realise that what the people want, they can get if they mobilise themselves”
Le Pen isn’t the only one who sees hope for the National Front. Whilst attending a conference in Berlin, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said that due to Trump’s win of the White House, it “is possible” that Le Pen could win the next election.
“If she does make it to the second round she will face either a candidate of the left or the right. This means that the balance of politics will change completely,” said Mr Valls.
Many of the French Nationalist Party’s immigration policies are similar to those endorsed by Trump and the Republican party, one of which hopes to reduce legal immigration into France from 200,000 a year where it currently stands to just 10,000.
“I am opposed to a multicultural France, I think that those who have a different culture and who arrive in France have to submit themselves to French culture. Like the old saying, ‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do.’ I think that in France we should do like the French people.” said Le Pen.
“That doesn’t mean discriminating against, (or) persecuting; it means we have a culture, we have values, and all those who come to our place have to submit themselves to this culture and these values. … Saying … ‘Come as you are, keep living like you do, keep your culture and we will add all that together,’ doesn’t work. Multicultural societies are multi-conflict societies.”
Back in the 2012 French Presidential election, Le Pen came third and finished with 17.9 percent of the first-round vote behind Nicholas Sarkosy with 27.18 percent and the winner Mr Hollande with 28.63 percent.
The far-right party hopes to better its chances of winning in 2017 through its growing support from working class voters.
Bruno Cautres, political sciences researcher at Science Po Cevipof, believes that “the FN has become the party of the working class. The party offers a double explanation for their malaise: Europe has failed to protect their jobs from globalisation and failed to protect their way of life from Muslim immigrants”
According to the latest national poll from Cevipof, 45 percent of blue-collar workers and 35% of unemployed people or youngsters looking for their first job plan to vote for Le Pen.
Despite Le Pen’s hopeful views for the party, most polls show there is still a long way to go and predict that she will be defeated in the second round.