Le Pen women make France's far-right family a dynasty

Long at the heart of France's far right, the Le Pen family is emerging as a dynasty after National Front founder Jean-Marie's daughter and granddaughter both racked up strong poll results. Seen for years as a bastion of anti-Muslim extremism, the National Front has been getting a makeover from two telegenic blondes: Marine Le Pen, who took over leadership of the party from her father last year, and her niece Marion Marechal-Le Pen, a 22-year-old law student running for parliament. After Marine posted a strong showing in the first round of the presidential election in April, with 17.9 percent of the vote, Marion seized the ultra-conservative spotlight by taking first place in the south-eastern constituency of Vaucluse in Sunday's first-round parliamentary vote. Jean-Marie, the 83-year-old patriarch and veteran of five presidential races, himself launched his granddaughter's campaign, praising her "good pedigree". "From the name I carry, I have an example to live up to," responded Marion. She went on to win 34.6 percent of the vote, finishing ahead of a Socialist challenger and the incumbent from the centre-right UMP, the outgoing ruling party. Her aunt Marine also finished first in her parliamentary race in the rundown former mining constituency of Henin-Beaumont, near the northern city of Lille. Marine, 43, took 42 percent of the vote, beating the Socialist challenger she will face in next Sunday's second round and crushing Far Left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon, who had decided to confront her head-on but bowed out of the next round after emerging bruised with only 21.5 percent. She claimed the result meant her party -- which wants to ditch the euro and battles against what she calls the "Islamisation" of France -- is now the country's third political power. The National Front, which has not won a seat in parliament since 1986, took 13.6 percent of the first-round legislative vote nationwide, far more than the four percent it achieved in the last parliamentary election in 2007. "There's a brand effect," said political analyst Jean-Yves Camus, a specialist of the far right. "It is undoubtedly a success for the strategy of de-demonisation," he added -- a nod to the softer image Marine has given a party long associated with her father's extremist outbursts, anti-Semitic jokes and anti-immigrant diatribes. But critics say she represents the same old xenophobic, hard-right party in new clothes, playing on voters' sensitivities over France's Muslim population, estimated at up to six million. Like her father, who in 2002 shocked France by making it into the second round of the presidential election, she has caused outrage with some comments, such as comparing Muslims praying in the streets outside overcrowded mosques in France to the Nazi occupation. President Francois Hollande's Socialist Party appears well aware of the growing threat posed by Marine Le Pen.. On Monday it proposed withdrawing its candidates from second-round races where others have a better chance of beating the National Front -- including in Marion Marechal-Le Pen's constituency -- and called on the UMP to do the same. UMP leader Jean-Francois Cope has repeatedly rejected the idea of an alliance with the National Front, even though an Ipsos poll published Monday found two-thirds of UMP voters want the parties to reach a truce to defeat the left in the second round. But Camus said despite some "cracks" in the wall between them, the two parties are not likely to team up anytime soon. "As long as the dyke isn't broken, the National Front represents around 15 percent of voters in France and won't be part of any local or national government," he said. The National Front "needs to have partners who accept to partially share government with it, something the UMP has so far refused to do," he added.