LE PEN SENIOR BLASTS DAUGHTER TO SELL MEMOIRS

The Front National is one of the most successful nationalist parties in Europe. Last year it's leader Marine Le Pen even contested the Presidency of France against Emmanuel Macron, losing in the final round of the election. 

Now Marine Le Pen is pushing to change the name of the party in order to make it less "toxic" and less politically isolated. Her chief critic, however, is her father, the party's founder, Jean-Marie Le Pen. He has denounced the move to rebrand the party as "suicidal":

"This initiative is suicidal," the 89-year old Le Pen Senior said in an interview. "That would be so for a company, and that is obviously also the case in politics. It takes years, decades, to build a credible political name. Wanting to change it is ... inexplicable."

Le Pen Senior has been a constant critic of his daughter since she expelled him from the party in 2015 in an attempt to improve the party's "optics" and distance it from its more overtly racialist roots. In the interview he also says that her 2017 Presidential campaign  was a "failure" and blames her for "strategic and tactical errors."

The main reason for this unfatherly behaviour is Le Pen Senior's new book of memoirs, which he is desperately trying to sell. Criticising his daughter and his old party is a great way to get lots of free publicity. 

The media, of course, is more than happy to report any negative comments they can spin to paint the Front National's 2017 campaign as an "abject failure." 

But this narrative is far from the truth, as Marine Le Pen has been much more successful in elections than her father, especially in appealing to non-FN voters. Jean-Marie Le Pen's best showing was in the final round of the 2002 Presidential election, where he marginally improved his first round vote of 16.86% to 17.8% in the final round. Yes, a tiny increase of less than 1% after all but the top two candidates had been eliminated.

Contrast this with his daughter's showing in the 2017 election, where she impressively improved her first round vote of 21.3% to 33.9% in the final round, a leap of 12.6%.

Since becoming leader in 2011, Marine has been pushing the party in a more palatable civic nationalist direction, in order to lessen opposition to its anti-immigrant agenda, gain more popular support, and make it easier for other parties to ally with it in coalition. The numbers show that Marine's strategy is a sensible one in the present moral climate, in which most French people, as elsewhere, are still terrified of being called "racists."

The move to change the name will take place at a party congress to be held in Lille on March 10th and 11th. So far no alternative name has yet been announced.