Category Archives: Marine Le Pen

Could Marine Le Pen finally triumph with her third tilt at French presidency?

Posted on by

Next year’s Élysée race looks like a battle between a fading Emmanuel Macron and the far-right leader. And some believe she might win this time

In Paris’s symbolic Place de la République, under the watchful gaze of France’s allegorical figurehead Marianne, the skateboarders are not in the mood to discuss politics.

For the young here, as everywhere, life has been paused during a pandemic that has halted studies, jobs, socialising and parties. What they want is their lives back, not to talk about an election.

Continue reading...

End of Trump era deals heavy blow to rightwing populist leaders worldwide

Posted on by

As Biden’s victory sinks in across Brazil, Hungary and elsewhere, dreams of a rightwing global crusade appear to be fading

As the Donald Trump era draws to a close, many world leaders are breathing a sigh of relief. But Trump’s ideological kindred spirits – rightwing populists in office in Brazil, Hungary, Slovenia and elsewhere – are instead taking a sharp breath.

The end of the Trump presidency may not mean the beginning of their demise, but it certainly strips them of a powerful motivational factor, and also alters the global political atmosphere, which in recent years had seemed to be slowly tilting in their favour, at least until the onset of coronavirus. The momentous US election result is further evidence that the much-talked-about “populist wave” of recent years may be subsiding.

Continue reading...

French court to decide on Marine Le Pen ‘steaming excrement’ case

Posted on by

Judges to decide whether excrement picture damaged far-right leader’s reputation

A long-running legal battle about whether a drawing of a steaming pile of excrement was damaging to the French far-right leader Marine Le Pen is finally due to be resolved.

Judges at France’s highest court will sit down on Friday afternoon to begin deciding on their final ruling in a seven-year legal case after Le Pen sued a TV presenter for defamation when he held up a drawing depicting her as excrement during a Saturday night talkshow.

Continue reading...

Lessons of the second world war are at risk of being forgotten, or even rewritten | Sadiq Khan

Posted on by

As we mark the 80th anniversary of the start of the second world war, with liberal democracies again under siege, Britain should be leading the fight against extremism

Eighty years ago, the start of the second world war saw Nazi Germany invading Poland. Six years later, up to 85 million people were dead. I’m in Poland this weekend to commemorate the start of the bloodiest war in human history.

An entire generation of brave men and women around the globe sacrificed everything to defeat the singular evil of Nazism and fascism.

Continue reading...

Final votes cast as EU awaits parliamentary election results

Posted on by

France, Germany, Italy and others go to polls on Sunday, with gains expected for nationalist parties

The western world’s largest democratic exercise is nearing its finale as tens of millions of EU citizens in 21 countries go to the polls on Sunday, the last of four days of voting in European parliament elections that will shape the bloc’s future.

Polls suggest the vote will produce a more fragmented parliament than ever before, with the two centre-right and centre-left groups that have dominated Europe’s politics forecast to lose their joint majority for the first time, and nationalist and populist forces to make gains.

Continue reading...

Europe’s far-right leaders unite with a vow to ‘change history’

Posted on by

Matteo Salvini and Marine Le Pen are joining with allies to create what may be the third-largest bloc in the European parliament

Italian deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini led a rally of his European far-right allies in front of Milan’s Gothic cathedral on Saturday. He pledged to change history after this week’s EU elections by making the populist alliance one of the largest groupings in the European parliament.

Flanked by France’s Marine Le Pen and leaders from nine other nationalist parties, Salvini began his speech to the packed Piazza del Duomo by quoting the British writer GK Chesterton: “The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him but because he loves what is behind him.” He added that his group would remould Europe “not for our sake, but for our children”.

Continue reading...

‘Not a statesman’: Matteo Salvini – the Zelig of Italian politics

Posted on by

League head attempts to burnish his credentials as leader of Europe’s far-right with home-turf rally

Nino Governale was the perfect target for the teenage Matteo Salvini. The PE teacher hailed from Sicily and could hardly get through the weekly lesson at the prestigious Alessandro Manzoni high school in Milan without being goaded by his pupil.

“Salvini was as arrogant at 14 as he is today,” Governale says. “His favourite game was to antagonise. At that time he was against all southerners – we were the enemies coming to Milan and stealing jobs.”

Continue reading...

Marine Le Pen makes ‘OK’ hand gesture used by white supremacists

Posted on by

France’s far-right National Rally leader asks ally to remove controversial selfie from Facebook

Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s far-right National Rally, has asked an Estonian ally to remove a selfie from Facebook in which the pair made a controversial “OK” hand gesture, which has been linked to white-power messaging.

Le Pen was in Tallinn to meet MPs from Estonia’s far-right EKRE party, which recently became part of the country’s coalition government, as part of cross-continent negotiations on setting up a new bloc of nationalist and far-right forces after European elections next week.

Continue reading...

Will the radical right consolidate power in the heart of the EU this year? | Cas Mudde

Posted on by

May’s European elections offer a chance for the resurgent far right to collaborate, consolidate – and bend the EU to its will

Every five years, millions of Europeans across the continent go to the polls to elect their national members of the European parliament. This May we’ll be doing so again, in what could be a watershed election for rightwing populists.

Although radical right parties won pretty big in the past two European elections, their influence within the various umbrella groups that make up the European parliament’s power blocs remained limited. This year, most rightwing populist parties may make only modest seat gains. But they also have the opportunity to create, for the first time, a serious rival to the centrist political groups that until now have dominated the EU’s governing body.

Continue reading...