- Title: TIMELINE: Key moments in the French far-right party's rise in popularity
- Date: 28th June 2024
- Summary: PARIS, FRANCE (FILE - JUNE 28, 2022) (REUTERS) HEAD OF SOCIALIST PARTY, OLIVIER FAURE, SPEAKING TO JOURNALISTS VARIOUS OF MEMBERS OF LAWMAKERS FROM LEFT-WING NUPES ALLIANCE ARRIVING AT PARLIAMENT BEFORE SESSION PARIS, FRANCE (FILE - JANUARY 21, 2024) (REUTERS) IMMIGRATION LAW PROTESTERS, INCLUDING MEMBERS OF CGT UNION, ON TROCADERO SQUARE, WITH EIFFEL TOWER IN BACKGROUND V
- Embargoed: 12th July 2024 12:25
- Keywords: Le pen National Front National Rally election far right timeline
- Location: VARIOUS LOCATIONS
- City: VARIOUS LOCATIONS
- Country: France
- Topics: Europe,Government/Politics,Elections/Voting
- Reuters ID: LVA00I429027062024RP1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: After decades as a political pariah, the far-right National Rally (RN) party may finally seize power in France in a two-round legislative vote that begins on Sunday (June 30) and will conclude on July 7.
Below is a history of the French far right, which has been dominated by the Le Pen family for more than half a century.
1972
Former soldier Jean-Marie Le Pen founds the National Front in 1972, a fringe far-right party comprised of veterans from the Algerian war and French collaborators from the Vichy regime.
1974
Le Pen runs in the 1974 presidential election, but garners less than 1% of the vote. Two years later, his home in Paris is attacked with a bomb. No culprit is ever found.
1981
Le Pen is unable to secure enough names to run for the 1981 presidential election, which is won by leftist François Mitterrand. His time in office energises the French right, luring new supporters to the National Front.
1987
Le Pen makes disparaging comments about gay men with AIDS, part of a lifelong tendency to spark outrage with racist and antisemitic slurs that often land him in legal jeopardy.
1988
Le Pen wins 14.4% of votes in the 1988 presidential election, underlining the party's growing appeal. The following year, the National Front wins more than 10% of votes in European elections. It also begins to zero in on Islam and Muslim immigrants as one of its major political concerns.
2002
Le Pen runs for president and wins 16.86% of votes, enough to put him into a second-round run-off against Jacques Chirac. Le Pen's strong showing sends shockwaves through France amid widespread disgust that such a far right party could do so well. Politicians from the right and left come together to prevent Le Pen from winning in the second round. Chirac goes on to win over 80% of votes in the run-off.
2011
In the years after the 2002 presidential election, Le Pen and his party suffer in the polls, while also facing financial pressures. In 2008 Le Pen is fined after a conviction for antisemitic remarks. Three years later, his daughter Marine Le Pen becomes the new leader of the National Front.
2012
Marine Le Pen unsuccessfully runs for the presidency in 2012.
2015
Jean Marie Le Pen is suspended from the party after describing the Holocaust as "a detail" of the war. That same year, he is expelled from the party.
2017
Marine Le Pen runs for the presidency again, but loses to Emmanuel Macron. After the 2017 loss, she begins the process of detoxifying the party, seeking to tone down its racist and antisemitic past and professionalise its lawmakers with sharper clothes and media training. In 2018, she changes the party name to National Rally (RN).
2022
Jordan Bardella, a 28-year-old protege of Marine Le Pen, is chosen to be the new president of the RN. He leads the party in the 2024 European parliamentary elections, handing out a drubbing to Macron's ticket and prompting the French president to call a snap legislative vote. Bardella is the RN's prime ministerial candidate.
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