PARIS (AP) – French nationalist leader Marine Le Pen has softened her rhetoric and image to widen her appeal in next week’s presidential election – but is under threat from a provocative rival who has broken her monopoly as the guardian of the country’s identity claim is threatened.
For more than a decade, Le Pen has been known for her staunch anti-immigration stance and sees herself as the guardian on the parapets of French civilization. Now she’s focusing on consumer spending power, voters’ top concern.
“I certainly agree that immigration and insecurity are serious issues that urgently need answers, but there isn’t just that,” Le Pen, leader of the National Rally Party, said during a voter questions TV program. “I’m worried about making ends meet, as I am about the end of France.”
Eric Zemmour, 63, a political novice living under the banner of his newly formed Reconquest! Party now presents itself as protector of old France with bold proposals on immigration and Islam. He has proposed a “remigration ministry” equipped with planes to speed up the deportation of what he says are unwanted migrants.
Their rivalry illustrates France’s increasing leanings towards the far right and how this has shaped the agenda for the two-round presidential elections to be held on April 10-24. While polls suggest centrist President Emmanuel Macron is the front runner, nearly half of respondents say they are willing to vote for a far-right candidate in the crucial runoff.
This is despite Zemmour, a TV pundit who modeled himself after former US President Donald Trump, being convicted three times for inciting racial or religious hatred.
Zemmour, who said he entered the race to “save France,” has made the conspiracy theory known as the “great surrogate” the centerpiece of his campaign. The term conjures up a false claim by white supremacists that immigrants and other people of color—particularly Muslims—will crowd out the natives of western countries and one day wipe out Christian civilization.
He recently claimed that without stopping immigration, France will become “an African nation, an Islamic nation” in 10 to 20 years. A large majority of the French are white Catholics and statistics on immigration trends contradict his claim.
Zemmour’s political goal is to create a “union of the right” that brings together conservatives, including traditional Catholics, and far-right parties. Le Pen, who also denounced the “migration submersion”, says her goal is the “union of France”.
Voter polls suggest Le Pen’s focus on purse problems could be working. They consistently show her second behind Macron, with Zemmour in third or fourth place. That could put her in a runoff against Macron, a repeat of her 2017 standoff, which she lost by 66% to 34%.
This time, the two far-right candidates combined win more support than the centrist president, making their supporters a threat to the established order.
A low turnout could render all primary calculations obsolete. Le Pen’s party is still suffering from her party’s failure in last summer’s regional elections, attributed to a turnout of just 33% of voters in the first round.
Le Pen’s emphasis on purchasing power is consistent with her work to detoxify her party since taking over the reins from her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the red-hot leader of the Front National at the time. She changed the party’s name and then expelled him after he repeated anti-Semitic remarks for which he had once been convicted.
Her father, who is now backing her new presidential bid, once compared her to Diet Coke and said she rids the party of hardliners like diluting its values.
A number of officials and their supporters have left them in favor of the more extreme Zemmour. She slammed insults at most of them — with the exception of her niece, Marion Marechal, a popular former lawmaker who has returned to politics to help Zemmour.
“Poor Marion,” said Le Pen, lamenting Marechal’s role as a “lifesaver” for Zemmour.
Sylvain Crepon, a National Rally specialist, said Zemmour poses no serious threat. He says it is Le Pen who embodies nationalist ideas and “in the end voters prefer the original to the copy”.
53-year-old Le Pen, who represents northern France and is in her third presidential race, has adopted a less aggressive tone, all but shedding her signature navy blue wardrobe in favor of pastels.
On policy issues, she highlights concerns that appeal to those struggling to make ends meet. It has also dropped its earlier goals of leaving the European Union and abandoning the euro.
But her nationalist streak remains firm. If elected, Le Pen plans drastic measures – to be voted on in a nationwide referendum – to curb immigration and “eradicate” political Islam. This includes ending the family reunification policy, which allows immigrants to settle in France if a close relative resides there. Like Zemmour, she would expel delinquent foreigners and those who have been unemployed for at least a year.
She says she honors the religion of Islam but vowed to ban Muslims from wearing headscarves on the streets, calling it an “Islamist uniform”.
Public appearances, however, often focus on the everyday problems of the middle and working class, who support them. Her platform is calling for measures to soften the blow of rising prices, like cutting taxes on energy bills from 20% to 5.5%. Le Pen promises to give people back €150 to €200 a month.
“What she understood are issues that interest the French and are not ideological issues,” like paying bills, said Jean-Yves Camus, a leading expert on the far right.
“Eric Zemmour says the only important issue is the end of France,” Camus said. “The French don’t necessarily believe that France is finished. And if you don’t want France to finish, you have to give it purchasing power.”
For Macron, Le Pen is the candidate to beat.
The Macron camp has openly worried about an “electoral accident,” perhaps due to low turnout by moderate voters, that could put Le Pen in power.
Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire denounced Le Pen’s “staggering metamorphosis”.
“Don’t think that we are the elite and they are the people,” he was quoted as saying by the French press during a visit to Normandy.
Romain Lopez, mayor of the southwestern city of Moissac and a member of Le Pen’s party, says he will vote for Zemmour in the first round but support Le Pen in the runoff if Zemmour fails.
“Zemmour gave himself a glass ceiling with his excesses of language,” said Lopez, citing the policy of “remigration”.
Lopez is looking beyond the election if he believes a new right-wing party will emerge with an important role for Le Pen’s niece Marechal.
For far-right pundit Camus, Zemmour helped Le Pen by making them seem more palatable.
A presidential candidate must bring voters together, and Le Pen did that, he said.
“At some point you’re obliged, as the French say, to put water in the wine, to make compromises,” said Camus. “You are obliged to make proposals that unite not 40% of the voters, but 50.1%.”