But there could be an uncomfortable reckoning just as Le Pen is trying to inject new dynamism into the National Rally. Critics say Le Pen has erased her party’s anti-establishment signature by trying to make it more palatable to the mainstream right. To so that, she strove to remove the stigma of racism and antisemitism that clung to the party under her now-ostracized father, Jean-Marie Le Pen. “The policy of adapting, of rapprochement with power, even with the ordinary right, was severely sanctioned,” said Jean-Marie Le Pen. In western France, all four members of a small local federation resigned between rounds of the regional elections.

Source: ABC News July 03, 2021 06:54 UTC