Detoxifying France's National Front

Analysis

BBC

News, Politics

4.6 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 20 March 2017

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Has Front National leader Marine Le Pen really detoxified the party founded by her father 40 years ago? Is it a right-wing protest movement or a party seriously preparing for power? Anand Menon, professor of European politics at Kings College London, analyses the process the French call Dédiabolisation. Le Pen has banished the name of the party and even her own surname from election posters and leaflets. Her party is making inroads into socialist and communist fiefdoms in northern and eastern France. Combining nationalism with a message designed to reach out to the left, she speaks up loudly for the have-nots, people who live in the land she calls "the forgotten France." She targets trade unionists, teachers and gay voters. But widening the party's appeal leads to a tricky balancing act. Can Marine Le Pen manage the process of political exorcism without alienating die-hard supporters? Producer: Lucy Ash.

Transcript

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0:36.0	Hello, thanks for downloading this analysis podcast.
0:39.0	You might have heard Tim Hewell's programme from the Netherlands last week asking why one of Europe's most
0:45.2	stridently anti-immigration anti-Islamic parties has been so successful in a country that we often see as laid back and tolerant.
0:54.0	Today, Arnan Menon focuses on the French women who admire
0:58.0	Donald Trump and has vowed to make France free again.
1:02.0	But has her party the Fronational changed enough to exercise
1:06.7	the ghosts of the past?
1:10.3	The wind of history has turned and it will carry us to the summit, declares
1:18.5	Marine Le Penh, leader of the French Front National to an enthusiastic flag-waving crowd as she launches
1:25.3	her presidential campaign in the city of Lyon.
1:27.8	We never want to live on the Jog or theas of fundamentalism Islamists.
1:34.6	She blasts what she and her supporters see as the twin evils of Islamic fundamentalism and
1:41.9	globalization and her speech is punctuated with applause
1:45.4	with cheers with whistles and the party's trademark battle cry.
1:49.2	Oneshinu, or this is our home, all eerily reminiscent of what we heard last week in analysis
	...

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