Marine Le Pen’s niece is founding her own party: What this means for the French far right | The right-wing extremist news

The niece of French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has launched her own political party, aiming to become a new force in the country’s growing right-wing bloc.

In an interview with French newspaper Le Figaro on Monday, Marion Marechal, 34, announced the creation of Identite-Libertes (Identity Freedoms) – or IDL – of which she is president.

“I have decided to create a political movement to contribute to the victory of the national camp,” she told the French newspaper, referring to the right-wing alliance that almost won a majority in France’s recent elections after losing the The three most important political alliances took first place in the first round of voting on June 30th.

The center and left blocs joined forces and selectively withdrew candidates in several areas to ensure that the right wing could not win a majority in the second round of voting, resulting in a paralyzed National Assembly in which each political alliance received about a third of the vote received.

Rassemblement National, the far-right party originally called the Front National and founded by Marechal’s grandfather Jean-Marie Le Pen, itself received more than 31 percent of the vote in the National Assembly elections at the end of June, making it the party with the most votes in France.

Although ideologically separate from the National Rally, the IDL said it would act as an ally and support Le Pen’s presidential candidacy in the 2027 elections.

“My goal is to work on a coalition with Marine Le Pen, Jordan Bardella and Eric Ciotti,” Marechal said. Bardella is the current president of the Rassemblement National (Le Pen was president from 2011 to 2021), while Ciotti is the leader of the right-wing Republican party in France.

Who is Marion Marechal?

Marion Jeanne Caroline Marechal is the granddaughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of the Front National – now renamed Rassemblement National – and also Marine Le Pen’s father. Marechal married Italian politician Vincenzo Sofo in 2021 and the couple have a daughter, Clotilde. Marechal also has an older daughter from her first marriage to French businessman Matthieu Decosse, which ended in 2016.

Marechal was initially a member of the National Rally Party. She became the youngest member of the National Assembly in the history of France when she was elected as a member of the National Assembly in 2012 at the age of 22.

However, in 2017, she did not seek re-election and also resigned as a regional councilor before returning to politics in 2022, joining Eric Zemmour’s far-right Reconquete party.

In a break with her family, Marechal announced in 2018 that she would change her name from Marion Marechal-Le Pen and abandon the surname of her grandfather Jean-Marie, known for inflammatory views on immigration and the Holocaust. She only uses the surname of her adoptive father Samuel, who was also a member of the National Rally since his youth. He married Marechal’s mother, Yann Le Pen – Marine’s sister.

In the June 2024 general election, Marechal topped Reconquete’s list for the European Parliament. Zemmour gave her the task of negotiating with the National Rally to put together a unified list of candidates for the election, but she accused him of placing too many conditions on a possible alliance and of hindering it.

Marechal was elected to the European Parliament on June 9, 2024, joining the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) Group, a center-right group in Parliament. Days later, Zemmour accused Marechal of “treason” and expelled her from the party on June 12. Marechal said she would serve as an independent.

What does your new party stand for?

The name of the party – Identité-Libertés (Identity-Freedoms) – summarizes its two main political “pillars”. On the one hand, the party says its goal is to defend French identity from immigration and what it calls “Islamization” and to promote France’s Christian heritage. On the other hand, freedom of expression and free enterprise should be protected.

Marechal said the IDL would break away from the “mental socialism” that governs financial policy in France.

It would also be “anti-woke”, the term “woke” comes from African American slang and describes someone who is aware of social inequalities such as racial injustice, sexism and the denial of LGBTQ rights.

Marechal told Le Figaro her party would work to strengthen the right-wing bloc, drawing inspiration from other European success stories, particularly Italy, where Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni became the first Italian female prime minister to come to power as head of a three-right coalition Wing parties in 2022.

Marechal said her split from Zemmour came when he made Le Pen’s Rassemblement National and Ciotti’s Republican Party his main opponents, while she wanted to forge an alliance that would strengthen the right-wing bloc to compete against the left.

“To stay coherent, I couldn’t follow [his] decision,” she said.

Despite their stated support for their aunt, the two heirs to France’s far-right Le Pen dynasty have long been embroiled in rivalry, particularly since Marine Le Pen expelled her father from the party in 2015 after he reiterated his stance that the Holocaust was ” a …”detail of the story”. Marechal called the expulsion a “cruel betrayal.”

The two women also disagreed on forming a stronger alliance between centrist parties and the right/far-right, something Marechal advocated but Le Pen rejected.

Does IDL pose a threat to the National Rally?

The new party was founded at a time when Le Pen and other party officials are on trial for alleged embezzlement of EU funds. If found guilty, Le Pen and her co-defendants face up to ten years in prison and fines of up to one million euros each.

Last month, as she arrived at the criminal court in Paris, Le Pen told reporters she was confident it would be proven that no wrongdoing had occurred.

Observers do not believe the IDL will pose a major threat to the National Rally.

Some of Zemmour’s supporters have posted on Others warning of the danger of extreme fragmentation of the right-wing camp, which they say could weaken their bloc if they continue to be unable to come together.

Daniel Stockemer, a professor in the political science department at the University of Ottawa, told Al Jazeera he did not believe the IDL would be successful as a political formation.

“This attempt by Marion Marechal is more of a sign of desperation,” said Stockemer, whose research focuses on right-wing radical parties in Europe. “Founding her own party was the only way for her to remain politically active.”

The National Rally has so far “survived all attempts to threaten its far-right hegemony,” Stockemer said, adding that he expects it to continue to do so now.