French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has announced that the Front National party, founded by her father nearly a half-century ago, will now be called Rassemblement National (the National Rally).
Le Pen all but kicked off the campaign for European parliamentary elections next year with the movethat reflects the party’s attempt to appeal to a broader range of voters at next year’s European elections
She also denounced the “arrogant tyranny” of the European Union and the “European oligarchy barricaded in Brussels”.
Under the new name, Le Pen’s aim is to rally people of all political stripes. The elections “can lead to a veritable European revolution,” she told the party’s political leadership at a meeting outside Lyon.
The name change is a “historic moment in the life of our movement,” she said, unveiling a logo that puts its traditional flames inside a partially closed circle to signify new openness.
Party members were asked to vote by mail on the proposed new name and 53% cast a ballot. She said that Rassemblement National was approved by nearly 81% of those who voted.
Le Pen hopes the new populist government sworn in Friday in Italy will boost her anti-immigration party’s fortunes. Matteo Salvini, the head of Italy’s rightwing Lega party, which has joined in a government with the anti-establishment Five Star Movement, is a friend of Le Pen.
Front National scored higher in the 2014 European elections than any other French party, but the profile of Le Pen, a nationalist once at the centre of France’s political limelight, has dimmed since she was trounced by Emmanuel Macron in the presidential election a year ago.
Le Pen’s niece, a rising star in Front National until she abruptly left the party after the 2017 presidential defeat, also threatens to steal the thunder from her aunt’s hoped-for revival.
Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, a former lawmaker, recently dropped the family moniker from her last name. Her political ambitions remain undefined but no one doubts that she has them. She spoke at the annual conference of US conservatives in February, taking the podium after vice president Mike Pence. In September, she is opening a school in Lyon teaching French culture, political science and management to train the future rightwing elite.
Marine Le Pen has worked to remove the racist and antisemitic stigma from the party co-founded by her father in 1972. She said at the party congress she wanted it to be viewed as a potential governing force, not just a protest movement. To make good on that, she formally severed all remaining ties to her firebrand father Jean-Marie Le Pen by eliminating his title of honorary president-for-life.
The elder Le Pen, 89, was not happy with his daughter’s decision to rebrand the movement he started. Undoing the party’s identity is the “toughest blow” Front National has faced since its founding, he said.