Marina Le Pen wants to push for elections on the French Riviera

In the south of France, Marina Le Pen hopes that her far-right party is about to break the glass ceiling and boost her by winning regional elections opportunity Become president next year.

Although the winner of the vote held in Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur on Sunday will only deal with local issues such as transportation and school buildings, the stakes are high because Le Pen’s National Unity Party (RN) may have won a place in France for the first time. 13 regions.

This will give her party the opportunity to prove that it can manage more than the small towns it has so far. Since RN is sending a strong candidate, the likelihood of Le Pen’s hope to achieve results also looks good.

“If RN wins in PACA, it will be a real event… It will show that traditional parties can no longer stop them,” said Dominique Reynié, a professor of political science who leads the committee. Fundapol Think tank. “If they occupy a region, it means they can occupy the entire country.”

Le Pen recruited RN’s regional candidate Thierry Mariani (Thierry Mariani), an experienced politician from the center-right Republican (LR) party, betting that he will gain trust among voters.These strategies are part of Le Pen’s efforts standardization An extremist movement founded by her father Jean-Marie Le Pen in the 1970s.

They seem to be working. Mariani’s list of local officials leads the polls on Sunday’s first round and the second round of the duel, which is expected to be held on June 27. Nationwide, RN also ranked first among the six regions, and is expected to surpass the region’s performance in 2015. The first round of voting was the most.

At a campaign rally in the medieval town of Brignoles, Renault Muselier of the British Revolutionary Guard urged voters not to fall into Le Pen’s trap, believing that Mariani is a “Trojan horse” that can be taken from tradition The right wing attracts voters. “The worrying thing is that people confuse presidential elections with local elections-don’t make this mistake!” he told hundreds of people.

Even so, many politicians seem to be doing this, making this year’s regional elections a dress rehearsal for the presidential election in May next year.Political parties are vying for influence as a poll, in Rerun In 2017, President Emmanuel Macron and Le Pen will face off in the second round.

In addition to this Sunday’s bet, two presidential candidates Valérie Pécresse and Xavier Bertrand are competing for victory in their respective Île-de-France and Île-de-France regions.Everyone wants to prove that they are The best standard bearer of the LR party of Charles de Gaulle.

Perhaps most importantly, the regional elections will test the political alliances and tactical voting that are critical to France’s two-round electoral system, and may make the outcome extremely difficult to predict.

In a kind called positive rit isPublication, Voters on the left and right usually vote tactically to prevent the extreme right from winning, and in their view protect the ideals of equality and the rule of law. In 2002, this prevented Jean-Marie Le Pen from winning the presidency. Also helped Macron in 2017 hit Marina Le Pen.

whether Front rit isPublication Reoccurrence is still an open question. Much depends on what the left does—that is, if the candidate withdraws, then its supporters tactically vote against RN.

In southern France, the unpleasant choice of the left actually handed the region to the far right.As for the center-right, its desire to resist registered nurses prompted Muselier to sign an unexpected alliance with Macron’s party. It backfired because it caused a storm in his camp.

During the Marseille campaign, Mariani rejected the view that registered nurses posed a threat to democratic values. “Today’s RN is a party like any other person, and has nothing to do with the comics of the past,” he said at a rally.

“Marine Le Pen has never been convicted, and her language is not as exaggerated as her father once did,” he added, referring to Le Pen’s 2018 conviction for denying the seriousness of the gas chamber of the Holocaust.

Mariani believes that, on the contrary, FN is “ahead of the times” on issues such as crime and immigration. “If we win, I think it will be good for the region. If Marina Le Pen wins, it will be a good thing for France.”

Back to Brignoles, his opponent Muselier strongly opposed that RN has evolved and even qualified to run the 5m area.He called the party Old name, The National Front, as a reminder of its roots.

“The same people and the same ideas, but stronger and even more dangerous because they were disguised,” he told reporters afterwards. “I’m trying to lift their veil.”

Christèle Lagier, a professor at the University of Avignon who studies the extreme right, said that the performance of the extreme right in Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur is not surprising.

In the 1960s, many French residents of Algeria were called Black feet When the North African countries gained independence, they moved to the region, sowing the seeds for the then new extreme right movement.

Rajel said that this loyalty has faded over time.But, on the contrary, many RN voters today are younger Working-class workers are angry at what they see as increased income inequality, difficulty in accessing housing, and their feeling of paying too much tax and immigrants getting more government help.

Nevertheless, Laguire does not believe that RN will win here. “For 20 years, people have predicted that they will win the area, but they haven’t,” she said.

“It is difficult for them to attract candidates and capable people… It is a paradox that a political party wins votes with the help of abstentions, but the political structure is quite weak.”