Saudi Gazette This report covers the political upbringing and the chance Marine Le pen has to be the first French woman ever to assume the French presidency. Le Pen is currently a leading candidate for the French presidency which should take place April 22 and May 6, 2012, the latter being used for a second round if necessary. Many political observers think Marine Le Pen the most challenging contender current President Sarkozy has ever faced. Marine Le Pen was born August 5, 1968 at Neuilly-sur-Seine; She is a French politician, a lawyer by profession and the president of the National Front (FN) since Jan. 16, 2011. Marine Le pen is the youngest daughter of the French politician Jean-Marie Le Pen, former president of the FN and currently its honorary chairman. She joined the FN in 1986, its Executive Committee in 2000 and was a vice president of the FN for eight years (2003-2011). She currently is an ex-officio member of the FN Executive Office, Executive Committee and Central Committee. In 2010, she was a candidate for the leadership of the FN set up by Jean-Marie Le Pen on Oct. 5,1972. She successfully succeeded him during the FN congress in Tours; on Jan. 16, 2011, she was elected with 67.65 percent as the second president of the Front National. Campaign values The core values of Marine's campaign are the loss of buying power, and about people who have no more than €50 or €100 ($71.50 or $143) left over at the end of each month,the refugees from Tunisia, and immigrants in general, the demands of social welfare systems for the French instead of for immigrants and finally her central issue is the fight against globalization, which Le Pen says is destroying France. She seeks to establish a moratorium on legal immigration. She supports the abolition of the law enabling the regularization of the illegal immigrants”. She wants to leave the euro, reintroduce customs borders and nationalize banks. Her vision is the antithesis of a Europe that hardly anyone, even in France, believes in anymore. In her view, citizenship is indivisible from nationality and rests on the equality of all people before the law; the latter should preclude preferential treatment based on the membership of a social, ethnic or religious category. As a result, she favors the repeal of affirmative action and the restoration of the “republican meritocracy”. She claims that filiation should be the normal route to French nationality, with naturalization the exception: “nationality is inherited or merited”. The results of a survey, published Jan. 13 in Le Parisien newspaper and based on an opinion poll by the Harris Institute, come at a time when Sarkozy's popularity continues to plummet. The findings have revived the specter of 2002 when Jean-Marie Le Pen – Marine's father – knocked socialist candidate Lionel Jospin from the country's opposition out of the presidential race in the first round before finally losing to Jacques Chirac. The Le Parisien poll found that 42-year-old Le Pen, who took control of the National Front in January, would obtain 23 percent of the vote in the first round of any poll if it were held now. Sarkozy would get 21 percent. Socialist Party leader Martine Aubry, who has not announced her intention to stand, would also get 21 percent. The survey does not give the level of support for Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former head of the International Monetary Fund, who is expected to declare his intention to represent the socialists in the May 2012 vote and is widely believed to stand more of a chance than Aubry. Since Le Pen, a mother of three, assumed control of the French National Front it has softened its traditional revisionist line on the Holocaust and anti-Semitism and appears to be targeting France's large Muslim community. After the results of the poll were announced, Le Pen said they were “an encouragement to continue to work and present our project to the French”. Speaking during a visit to the northern city of Lille, Le Pen added that French people were “waking up”. “The French want a different kind of politics, they would like to have a proper choice in the second round [of the presidential elections]: the choice between a national project and a global project as represented either by Nicolas Sarkozy, either by Dominique Strauss-Kahn or by Martine Aubry.” Le Pen said she was convinced Sarkozy – who is hoping to win over right-wing voters with a crackdown on immigration and a debate on “Islam in France” – had lost the support of the French people. “There's a trend that makes me think that Nicolas Sarkozy is going to lose the presidential elections. I don't think he can climb back up. He represents such a disappointment and rejection by French people that I think he's already out of the second round.” In the last election, Sarkozy handled the challenge from Jean-Marie Le Pen very effectively. He faces a much more sophisticated politician in Marine Le Pen. __
