Marine Le Pen

Marion Anne Perrine "Marine" Le Pen (; born 5 August 1968) is a French lawyer and politician of the far-right National Rally party (RN). She served as the party's president from 2011 to 2021, and ran for the French presidency in the 2012, 2017 and 2022 elections. She has been the member of the National Assembly for the 11th constituency of Pas-de-Calais since 2017. She has been parliamentary party leader of the National Rally in the Assembly since June 2022.

Le Pen is the youngest daughter of former party leader Jean-Marie Le Pen and the aunt of former FN MP Marion Maréchal. Le Pen joined the FN in 1986. She was elected as a regional councillor of Nord-Pas-de-Calais (1998–2004; 2010–2015), Île-de-France (2004–2010) and Hauts-de-France (2015–2021), a Member of European Parliament (2004–2017), as well as a municipal councillor of Hénin-Beaumont (2008–2011). She won the leadership of the FN in 2011, with 67.6% of the vote, defeating Bruno Gollnisch and succeeding her father, who had been president of the party since he founded it in 1972. In 2012, she placed third in the presidential election with 17.9% of the vote, behind François Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy. She launched a second bid for the presidency at the 2017 election. She finished second in the first round of the election with 21.3% of the vote and faced Emmanuel Macron of centrist party En Marche! in the second round of voting. On 7 May 2017, she conceded after receiving approximately 33.9% of the vote in the second round. In 2020, she announced her third candidacy for the presidency in the 2022 election. She came second in the first round of the election with 23.2% of the votes, thus qualifying her for the second round against Macron, losing in the second round after receiving 41.5% of the votes.

Le Pen has led a movement of " de-demonisation of the National Front" to soften its image, including limited expulsion of members accused of racism, antisemitism or Pétainism. She expelled her father from the party in August 2015, after he made fresh controversial statements. While liberalizing some political positions of the party by revoking its opposition to same-sex partnerships, its opposition to unconditional abortions, and its support for the death penalty, Le Pen still advocates many of the same historical policies of her party, with particular focus on strong anti-immigration, nationalist and protectionist measures. She is supportive of economic nationalism, favoring an interventionist role of government, and is opposed to globalization and multiculturalism. Le Pen supports limiting immigration and banning ritual slaughter. She has made supportive comments of Vladimir Putin and Russia in the past, advocating closer cooperation before the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine; she strongly condemned the war in Ukraine, but stated Russia could become " an ally of France again" if it ends. She has supported Israel during the Gaza war.

''Time'' named Le Pen one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2011 and 2015. In 2016, ''Politico'' named her the second-most influential MEP in the European Parliament, after President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz. In January 2024, after months of rising polling numbers, and for the first time ever, Le Pen became the most popular politician in France according to a Verian-Epoka for '' Le Figaro Magazine''.

On 31 March 2025, Le Pen, eight other MEPs, and 12 assistants were convicted of embezzlement for misappropriating over €4 million European Parliament funds to fund National Front staff. The sentences for several MEPs included bans from running for political office. Le Pen was sentenced to four years in prison and a five-year ban from running for political office, effectively disqualifying her from the upcoming 2027 French presidential election. She was also fined €100,000.

Early life and education

Early life and family

Marion Anne Perrine Le Pen was born on 5 August 1968 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, the youngest of three daughters of Jean-Marie Le Pen (1928–2025), a Breton politician and former paratrooper, and his first wife, Pierrette Le Pen. She was baptized on 25 April 1969 at La Madeleine Church in Paris. Her godfather was Henri Botey, a relative of her father.

Le Pen has two sisters: Yann and Marie-Caroline. In 1976, when Marine was eight, a bomb meant for her father exploded in the stairwell outside the family's apartment as they slept. The blast ripped a hole in the outside wall of the building, but Marine, her two older sisters and their parents were unharmed.

Le Pen was a student at the Lycée Florent Schmitt in Saint-Cloud. Her mother left the family in 1984 when Marine was 16. Le Pen wrote in her autobiography that the effect was "the most awful, cruel, crushing of pains of the heart: my mother did not love me." Her parents divorced in 1987.

Legal studies and work

Le Pen studied law at Panthéon-Assas University, graduating with a Master of Laws in 1991 and a Master of Advanced Studies (DEA) in criminal law in 1992. Registered at the Paris bar association, she worked as a lawyer for six years (1992–1998), appearing regularly before the criminal chamber of the 23rd district court of Paris which judges immediate appearances, and often acting as a public defender. She was a member of the Paris Bar until 1998, when she joined the legal department of the National Front.

Early political career

1986–2010: Rise within the National Front

Le Pen joined the FN in 1986, at the age of 18. She acquired her first political mandate in 1998 when she was elected a Regional Councillor for Nord-Pas-de-Calais. In the same year, she joined the FN's juridical branch, which she led until 2003. In 2000, she became president of ''Generations Le Pen'', a loose association close to the party which aimed at "''de-demonizing'' the Front National". She became a member the FN Executive Committee () in 2000, and vice-president of the FN in 2003.

In 2006, she managed the presidential campaign of her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen. She became one of the two executive vice-presidents of the FN in 2007, with responsibility for training, communication and publicity. In the 2007 parliamentary election, she contested Pas-de-Calais' 14th constituency but came second behind incumbent Socialist MP Albert Facon.

2010–11: Leadership campaign

Early in 2010, Le Pen expressed her intention to run for leader of the FN, saying that she hoped to make the party "a big popular party that addresses itself not only to the electorate on the right but to all the French people".

On 3 September 2010, she launched her leadership campaign at Cuers, Var. During a meeting in Paris on 14 November 2010, she said that her goal was "not only to assemble our political family. It consists of shaping the Front National as the center of grouping of the whole French people", adding that in her view the FN leader should be the party's candidate in the 2012 presidential election. She spent four months campaigning for the FN leadership, holding meetings with FN members in 51 departments. All the other departments were visited by one of her official supporters. During her final meeting of the campaign in Hénin-Beaumont on 19 December 2010, she claimed that the FN would present the real debate of the next presidential campaign. Her candidacy was endorsed by a majority of senior figures in the party, including her father.

On several occasions during her campaign she ruled out any political alliance with the Union for a Popular Movement. She also distanced herself from some of Jean-Marie Le Pen's most controversial statements, such as those relating to war crimes, which was reported in the media as attempts to improve the party's image. While her father had attracted controversy by saying that the mass murder of Jews in gas chambers during the Holocaust was "a detail of the history of World War II", she described genocide as "the height of barbarism".

In December 2010 and early January 2011, FN members voted by post to elect their new president and the members of the central committee. The party held a congress at Tours on 15–16 January. On 16 January 2011, Marine Le Pen was elected as the new president of the FN, with 67.65% of the vote (11,546 votes to 5,522 for Bruno Gollnisch), and Jean-Marie Le Pen became honorary chairman.

Muslim occupation comment

Marine Le Pen received substantial media attention during the campaign as a result of comments, made during a speech to party members in Lyon on 10 December 2010, in which she compared the use of public streets and squares in French cities (in particular rue Myrha in the 18th arrondissement of Paris) for Muslim prayers with the Nazi occupation of France. She said:

Her comments were much criticised. Government spokesman François Baroin characterized her remarks as racist and xenophobic. The Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions (CRIF), the French Council of Muslim Faith (CFCM) and the International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism (LICRA) condemned her statement, and groups including MRAP (Movement Against Racism and for Friendship between Peoples) and the French Human Rights League (LDH) declared their intention to lodge a formal complaint. The imam of the Great Mosque of Paris and former president of the CFCM, Dalil Boubakeur, said that, while her parallel was questionable and to be condemned, she had asked a valid question.

Le Pen's partner Louis Aliot, a member of the FN's Executive Committee, criticized "the attempted manipulation of opinion by communitarian groups and those really responsible for the current situation in France". On 13 December 2010, Le Pen reasserted her statement during a press conference at the FN headquarters in Nanterre. After Jean-François Kahn's comments on BFM TV on 13 December 2010, she accused the Élysée Palace of organising "state manipulation" with the intention of demonizing her in public opinion. On 15 December 2015, a Lyon court acquitted her of "inciting hatred", ruling that her statement "did not target all of the Muslim community" and was protected "as a part of freedom of expression".

Leadership of the National Front/National Rally (2011–2022)

Rebranding of the National Front

Le Pen has pursued a policy of "de-demonisation" of her party, to reform its image away from the extremism associated with her father, the former leader of the party and to increase the appeal of the party to voters. This has included policy reform and personnel replacement, including the expulsion of her own father from the party in 2015. Measures aimed at de-demonisation have included dropping all references to World War II or to the French colonial wars, which is often looked on as a generation gap. and distancing herself from her father's views.

Bernard-Henri Lévy, a strong opponent of the FN, described Le Pen's leadership of it as "far-right with a human face". The measures have also attracted criticism from former allies as making the party too mainstream, abandoning long-held policies and ignoring grassroots support.

In a 2010 RTL interview, Le Pen stated that her strategy was not about changing the FN's program but about showing it as it really is, instead of the image given to it by the media in the previous decades. The media and her political adversaries are accused of spreading an "unfair, wrong and caricatural" image of the National Front. She refuses the qualification of far-right or extreme-right, considering it a pejorative term: "How am I party of the extreme right? ... I don't think that our propositions are extreme propositions, whatever the subject".

In 2014, the American magazine ''Foreign Policy'' mentioned her, along with four other French people, in its list of the 100 global thinkers of the year, underlining the way she "renovated the image" of her party, which had become a model for other right-wing parties in Europe after her success in the European elections. At a European level, she stopped the alliance built by her father with some right-wing extremist parties and refused to be part of a group with the radical Jobbik or the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn. Her transnational allies share the fact that they have officially condemned antisemitism, accepted a more liberal approach toward social matters, and are sometimes pro-Israel such as the Dutch PVV. French historian Nicolas Lebourg concluded that she is looked upon as a compass for them to follow while maintaining local particularities.

While other European populists embraced Donald Trump's candidacy in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, she said only, "For France, anything is better than Hillary Clinton". However, on 8 November 2016, she posted a tweet congratulating Trump on his election.

Her social program and her support of SYRIZA in the 2015 Greek general elections led Nicolas Sarkozy to declare her a far-left politician sharing some of Jean-Luc Mélenchon's propositions. President François Hollande said she was talking "like a leaflet of the Communist Party". Éric Zemmour, then known as a journalist for the conservative newspaper ''Le Figaro'', wrote during the 2012 presidential election that the FN had become a left-wing party under the influence of adviser Florian Philippot. She has also relaxed some political positions of the party, advocating for civil unions for same-sex couples instead of her party's previous opposition to legal recognition of same-sex partnerships, accepting current abortion laws, and withdrawing the restitution of the death penalty from her platform.

Despite Le Pen's attempts to make the National Front more palatable to the international community, the party and Le Pen herself continue to attract criticism: German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said she "will contribute to make other political forces stronger than the National Front"; Israel still holds a negative opinion of her party; and former Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage – himself a frequent critic of Islam and immigration – has said, "I've never said a bad word about Marine Le Pen; I've never said a good word about her party".

First steps as a New leader (2011)

As a president of the Front National, Marine Le Pen currently sits as an ''ex officio'' member among the FN Executive Office (8 members), the Executive Committee (42 members) and the Central Committee (3 ''ex officio'' members, 100 elected members, 20 co-opted members).

During her opening speech in Tours on 16 January 2011, she advocated to "restore the political framework of the national community" and to implement the direct democracy which enables the "civic responsibility and the collective tie" thanks to the participation of public-spirited citizens for the decisions. The predominant political theme was the uncompromising defence of a protective and efficient state, which favours secularism, prosperity and liberties. She also denounced the "Europe of Brussels" which "everywhere imposed the destructive principles of ultra-liberalism and free trade, at the expense of public utilities, employment, social equity and even our economic growth which became within twenty years the weakest of the world". After the traditional Joan of Arc march and Labour Day march in Paris on 1 May 2011, she gave her first speech in front of 3,000 supporters.

On 10 and 11 September 2011, she made her political comeback with the title "the voice of people, the spirit of France" in the convention center of Acropolis in Nice