PARIS: Jean-Marie Le Pen is on holiday. The veteran French far right-wing leader is taking a final break before the gruelling political marathon he hopes will take him, if not into the Elysee Palace, at least into the second round of the presidential elections next spring.
In his absence it is his daughter, Marine, 38, who is the face of the party. At her office in the Front National (FN) headquarters in the west Paris suburb of St Cloud, Marine Le Pen explained the idea behind the new, controversial poster campaign launched last week, which, for the first time, does not highlight the beefy features of her father, but features a woman of apparent immigrant origin.
'For 30 years we have defended the interests of the French people, where ever they come from, whatever their race or religion,' she said. 'The idea of the posters is to put the French people in the foreground, not the candidate. We want to give them back the voice they have been denied by the political elite.'
The strategy is working. Poll results published in Le Monde late last week showed the FN at its highest levels of support for years, even better than in the run-up to the 2002 election where it polled 18 per cent and went through to the two-candidate run-off of the second round. In 1997 nearly half of French people saw Le Pen's ideas as unacceptable; now only a third do. 'People are getting used to Le Pen and his ideas. They are becoming banal,' said Emmanuel Riviere, of pollsters TNS Sofres. Marine says this is only natural: 'People are only surprised because we have been caricatured for so many years. Now they are learning the truth. We have been seen as the devil for too long.' Truth for some, cynical marketing exercise for others. 'In France, we have a vulgar expression that you can't paint merde,' Le Pen, the youngest of former paratrooper Jean-Marie's three daughters, said. She was referring to the efforts of what she called political elites to 'cover up' the state of France's economic and social problems. Yet her phrase could equally be applied, critics say, to the FN itself.
Marine Le Pen is at the spearhead of a radical attempt to change the image of her party. A 300-page autobiography Against the Flow, appearances in French media, a diet, a personal makeover as well as a new 'moderate' language have all led to new prominence for the former lawyer, divorcee and mother of three children. Her father is 78, contesting his sixth election, and everyone is aware that the time to pass the torch is not far away. Marine Le Pen is now, despite opposition from within the party and despite her own denials, best placed for the succession.
'All extremist parties have a problem with what to do when the chief goes,' said Frederic Dabi, public opinion expert at pollsters Ifop. 'Marine Le Pen has built herself a popular base that is far from negligible.'
A new chapter in the Le Pen family saga is opening. For it is indeed a saga -- or a soap opera, according to critics. 'There is a real Dallas side to that family,' said Lorrain de Saint-Affrique, a former public relations adviser to the FN. 'The members detest each other but always reconcile their differences in the end.'
Le Pen, his second wife, two of his daughters -- including Marine -- and their children share a mansion and five-hectare estate near the FN office. Daughter Marie-Caroline was ostracised from the party and the family when the FN split in the late 1990s, and she sided with her father's rival. Now she has returned, more or less, to the fold. Relations between Marine and her father have not always been good.
