All eyes are on France’s far-right National Front party in the upcoming local elections as it puts forward its largest ever number of candidates. Is the anti-EU, anti-immigration party set for its big breakthrough and what will it mean for France?
National Front leader Marine Le Pen’s desperate efforts to “de-demonize” her anti-immigration, anti-EU party are predicted to translate into hundreds of seats and even the capture of several towns in the municipal elections later this month.
The group will present a party record of 596 electoral lists across France in the first round of voting on March 23rd.
Recent polls suggest the party, whose historic leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, Marine’s father, has repeatedly been convicted of racial hatred and Holocaust denial, could walk away with hundreds of local council seats and the mayor’s office in about a dozen towns across the country.
The National Front threat has easily been the main talking point in the run up to the elections.
So will the 2014 elections mark the big breakthrough for the National Front in French politics? What will a strong showing mean for France? The Local speaks with far-right specialist Jean-Yves Camus, a political analyst at France’s Institute of International and Strategic Relations (IRIS), to find out.
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