What a “relooking” can do. Marine Le Pen two years ago and today
When it comes to makeovers, you have to hand it to Marine Le Pen, daughter of Jean-Marie, perennial French presidential candidate and boss of the National Front.
As campaign director and number two to her father, the 38-year-old politician has crafted a new, gentler face for the old ultra-right bogeyman, now nearing 79. She is winning support for the party from novel quarters, including some immigrants.
She has also transformed her own looks as she does battle as her dad’s television stand-in against the front-runners, Ségolène Royal, the Socialist, and Nicolas Sarkozy, of the centre-right Union for a Popular Majority.
Charles Bremner, Paris correspondent for The Times, spoke with Marine le Pen. Some quotes:
“We are confident of reaching the second round again. We are always under-estimated by the polls and at this stage last time they were giving us half the voting intentions that they report now.”
About Royal: “She wasn’t prepared and she will be a disappointment. She does not have the depth of a stateswoman. An attractive image is not enough. She is just more old socialism.”
“Sarkozy, Ségolène, François Bayrou, they’re all anti-system now. The fundamental difference is that events have pushed the political class towards the Front. They can’t demonise us any more. We said that immigration was a disaster, that the schools were not working, that the euro had made people poorer, that globalisation is a threat. Now the whole political class agrees with us.” [...]
