Why
Marine Le Pen is going off-grid in 2016
Bruised
after several campaigns, the National Front leader is taking time to
regroup.
By NICHOLAS VINOCUR
1/25/16, 5:30 AM CET
PARIS — Marine Le
Pen has a message for TV and radio interviewers who competed to ask
her the toughest, most “gotcha” question in 2015: Find another
target, because I’m going off the grid to get my presidential
campaign underway.
After a strenuous
two-year period during which Le Pen conducted no fewer than three
election campaigns, the National Front chief is taking a big step
back from round-the-clock politics to prepare for her 2017 bid. That
means setting out on the road at least once a week to soak up
grievances in France’s provinces, where Le Pen can now rely on the
hospitality of hundreds of newly elected National Front officials.
But while aides say
Le Pen is motivated by a desire to “reconnect with the nation”
and find fresh ideas for her presidential bid, they also hint at
other reasons for the political sabbatical.
The strain of
running a party and constant media exposure through multiple
campaigns has taken a personal toll on Le Pen, they say. Bruised by
the National Front’s failure to win a single region in local
elections in December, she has also been worn down by what party
officials call the “nasty tone” and point-scoring culture of
Parisian interviewers.
“Election
campaigns in France have grown increasingly aggressive, and the
regional [campaign] was the most aggressive one yet, at least for
Marine Le Pen,” said Bruno Bilde, a senior adviser and the man who
ran her failed campaign to win the presidency of the
Nord-Pas-de-Calais region in northern France. “You don’t emerge
from something like that and just carry on as before. It leaves
scars. You need to take a step back to take stock.”
These interviewers
have one thing in mind, which is to provoke Marine” — Sébastien
Chenu, advisor to Le Pen
As an example of
that so-called aggression, Bilde pointed to a series of front-page
headlines in regional daily La Voix du Nord, which urged voters
between the election’s two rounds to reject Le Pen. The National
Front felt the stance was unfair and evidence of “ganging up” by
its opponents.
But other officials
say Le Pen is more affected by her treatment at the hands of a small
coterie of morning talk show hosts who compete ferociously over
guests, and try to one-up each other to generate buzz.
‘Hysterical’
Several Le Pen aides
pointed to an interview on Europe 1 radio last January, a few days
after the Charlie Hebdo killings, as a case in point. The National
Front chief had just sat down when star interviewer Jean-Pierre
Elkabbach opened their chat with the question: “Are you not ashamed
of yourself?”
As Le Pen blinked
and said “pardon?” Elkabbach explained he was referring to her
absence from a “unity rally” held after the attacks — a rally
from which Le Pen had been formally disinvited by the Socialist
party.
Le Pen, before a
televised and radio broadcast debate in Lille Philippe |
Huguen/AFP/Getty
Le Pen, before a
televised and radio broadcast debate in Lille Philippe |
Huguen/AFP/Getty
A similar hectoring
tone, in which interviews sound like cross-examinations, colored many
media appearances last year. By the end of it, the strain was
starting to show on Le Pen.
Furious at the
suggestion, made by an RMC radio host, that the National Front and
the ISIL terrorist group drew support from the same wells of
frustration, Le Pen lashed out by tweeting graphic photos of
executions with the caption, “This is the Islamic State!” The
interviewer, Jean-Jacques Bourdin, fired back that Le Pen’s
response had been “hysterical.”
“These
interviewers have one thing in mind, which is to provoke Marine so
that they can boost their own audience and raise their profile,”
said Sébastien Chenu, another advisor to Le Pen. “Happily she is a
pro, but this sort of treatment is exhausting and she will be
relieved to stay away from radio and TV sets for a while.”
One-woman rule
Another reason for
Le Pen’s withdrawal is the need for soul-searching ahead of a 2017
presidential race.
Senior cadres know
that if the National Front wants to buck its curse of being a
first-round performer, never able to win power, big changes are in
order. To discuss them, a few dozen officials are planning to gather
in early February for a three-day symposium, and participants say
that anything — including a change of the party’s name — is on
the table. (One possibility being floated is “The Patriots,”
which would go with the slogan “Une France apaisée,” which
roughly translates as “A gentler France.”)
Unlike other
parties, the National Front has no official spokesperson, meaning
that Le Pen herself is on the hook to communicate on nearly any issue
concerning the party.
Several aspects of
the party’s political doctrine, notably its insistence on a
withdrawal from the eurozone and a statist approach to the economy,
will also be up for consideration.
But whatever the
debate, there are no plans for a vote on the outcome, as is usually
the case in the mainstream Socialist or center-right Républicains
parties when a change of political orientation is being considered.
The absence of a
vote brings to mind a frequent criticism of the National Front: that
it remains, despite having expanded its base and purged openly racist
members, essentially a family business in which important decisions
are taken by a core of two or three people, with Le Pen herself at
the center.
Unlike other
parties, the National Front has no official spokesperson, meaning
that Le Pen herself is on the hook to communicate on nearly any issue
concerning the party, creating a risk of overexposure.
“Whatever the
issue, it’s Marine on the front line taking the flak,” said a
party source who asked not to be named. “We should think about
doing a better job of protecting her on issues where she is not
speaking directly to the party’s political program.”
’10 terrorist
attacks’
As Le Pen enters a
more meditative phase, National Front officials are upbeat in public
about her chances of reorienting the party in time for 2017. In
private, however, there is greater acceptance of the idea that there
is little chance Le Pen will be able to gather 50.1 percent of votes
— which leads to some imaginative speculation about what exactly
would need to happen in order for her to be elected in 2017.
“With conditions
as they are today, Le Pen would not get elected in 2017,” said
Chenu. “But a lot can happen. If there are 10 terrorist attacks, if
another million migrants come to Europe, if the European Union crisis
continues to worsen, it becomes a real possibility.”
Until campaigning
for the presidency begins in earnest, Le Pen will be somewhere in the
French hinterland soaking up the country’s spirit.
Her instructions are
clear: Don’t bother calling unless it’s important.
Authors:
Nicholas Vinocur
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