Marine Le Pen facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Marine Le Pen
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Le Pen in 2024
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| President of the National Rally group in the National Assembly | |
| Assumed office 28 June 2022 |
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| Preceded by | Office established |
| Member of the National Assembly for Pas-de-Calais's 11th constituency |
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| Assumed office 18 June 2017 |
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| Preceded by | Philippe Kemel |
| President of the National Rally | |
| In office 16 January 2011 – 5 November 2022 |
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| Preceded by | Jean-Marie Le Pen |
| Succeeded by | Jordan Bardella |
| Chair of the Europe of Nations and Freedom Group | |
| In office 15 June 2015 – 19 June 2017 Serving with Marcel de Graaff
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| Preceded by | Office established |
| Succeeded by | Nicolas Bay |
| Member of the European Parliament | |
| In office 14 July 2009 – 18 June 2017 |
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| Constituency | North-West France |
| In office 20 July 2004 – 13 July 2009 |
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| Constituency | Île-de-France |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Marion Anne Perrine Le Pen
5 August 1968 Neuilly-sur-Seine, France |
| Political party | National Rally (since 1986) |
| Spouses |
Franck Chauffroy
(m. 1995; div. 2000)Eric Lorio
(m. 2002; div. 2006) |
| Domestic partner | Louis Aliot (2009–2019) |
| Children | 3 |
| Parents |
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| Relatives | Marion Maréchal (niece) Philippe Olivier (brother-in-law) Jordan Bardella (nephew-in-law) Vincenzo Sofo (nephew-in-law) |
| Alma mater | Panthéon-Assas University (LLM, DEA) |
| Signature |  |
Marion Anne Perrine Le Pen ( born 5 August 1968) is a French lawyer and politician who ran for the French presidency in 2012, 2017, and 2022. A member of the National Rally (RN; previously the National Front, FN), she served as its president from 2011 to 2021. She has been the member of the National Assembly for the 11th constituency of Pas-de-Calais since 2017. She currently serves as parliamentary party leader of the National Rally in the Assembly, a position she has held since June 2022.
Le Pen was featured by Time as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2011 and 2015. In 2016, she was ranked by Politico as the second-most influential MEP in the European Parliament, after President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz.
Early life and education
Childhood
Marion Anne Perrine Le Pen was born on 5 August 1968 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, the youngest of three daughters of Jean-Marie Le Pen, a Breton politician and former paratrooper, and his first wife, Pierrette Le Pen. She was baptized on 25 April 1969 at La Madeleine Church in Paris. Her godfather was Henri Botey, a relative of her father.
Le Pen has two sisters: Yann and Marie Caroline. In 1976, when Marine was eight, a bomb meant for her father exploded in the stairwell outside the family's apartment as they slept. The blast ripped a hole in the outside wall of the building, but Marine, her two older sisters and their parents were unharmed.
She was a student at the Lycée Florent Schmitt in Saint-Cloud. Her mother left the family in 1984 when Marine was 16. Le Pen wrote in her autobiography that the effect was "the most awful, cruel, crushing of pains of the heart: my mother did not love me." Her parents divorced in 1987.
Legal studies and work
Le Pen studied law at Panthéon-Assas University, graduating with a Master of Laws in 1991 and a Master of Advanced Studies (DEA) in criminal law in 1992. Registered at the Paris bar association, she worked as a lawyer for six years (1992–1998), appearing regularly before the criminal chamber of the 23rd district court of Paris which judges immediate appearances, and often acting as a public defender. She was a member of the Paris Bar until 1998, when she joined the legal department of the National Front.
Personal life
Le Pen was raised Roman Catholic. In 1995, she married Franck Chauffroy, a business executive who worked for the National Front. She has three children with Chauffroy (Jehanne, Louis, and Mathilde). After her divorce from Chauffroy in 2000, she married Eric Lorio in 2002, the former national secretary of the National Front and a former adviser to the Regional election in Nord-Pas-de-Calais. The couple divorced in 2006.
From 2009 until 2019, she was in a relationship with Louis Aliot, who is of ethnic French Pied-Noir and Algerian Jewish heritage. He was the National Front general secretary from 2005 to 2010, then the National Front vice president. She has lived in La Celle-Saint-Cloud with her three children since September 2014. She has an apartment in Hénin-Beaumont. In 2010, she bought a house with Aliot in Millas.
Early political career
1986–2010: Rise within the National Front
Marine Le Pen joined the FN in 1986, at the age of 18. She acquired her first political mandate in 1988 when she was elected a Regional Councillor for Nord-Pas-de-Calais. In the same year, she joined the FN's juridical branch, which she led until 2003.
In 2000, she became president of Generations Le Pen, a loose association close to the party which aimed at "de-demonizing the Front National". She became a member the FN Executive Committee (French: bureau politique) in 2000, and vice-president of the FN in 2003. In 2006, she managed the presidential campaign of her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen. She became one of the two executive vice-presidents of the FN in 2007, with responsibility for training, communication and publicity.
In the 2007 parliamentary election, she contested Pas-de-Calais' 14th constituency but came second behind incumbent Socialist MP Albert Facon.
2010–11: Leadership campaign
Early in 2010, Le Pen expressed her intention to run for leader of the FN, saying that she hoped to make the party "a big popular party that addresses itself not only to the electorate on the right but to all the French people".
On 3 September 2010, she launched her leadership campaign at Cuers, Var. During a meeting in Paris on 14 November 2010, she said that her goal was "not only to assemble our political family. It consists of shaping the Front National as the center of grouping of the whole French people", adding that in her view the FN leader should be the party's candidate in the 2012 presidential election. She spent four months campaigning for the FN leadership, holding meetings with FN members in 51 departments. All the other departments were visited by one of her official supporters. During her final meeting of the campaign in Hénin-Beaumont on 19 December 2010, she claimed that the FN would present the real debate of the next presidential campaign. Her candidacy was endorsed by a majority of senior figures in the party, including her father.
On several occasions during her campaign she ruled out any political alliance with the Union for a Popular Movement.
In December 2010 and early January 2011, FN members voted by post to elect their new president and the members of the central committee. The party held a congress at Tours on 15–16 January. On 16 January 2011, Marine Le Pen was elected as the new president of the FN, with 67.65% of the vote (11,546 votes to 5,522 for Bruno Gollnisch), and Jean-Marie Le Pen became honorary chairman.
"De-demonisation" of the FN
Le Pen has pursued a policy of "de-demonisation" of her party, to reform its image away from the extremism associated with her father, the former leader of the party and to increase the appeal of the party to voters. This has included policy reform and personnel replacement, including the expulsion of her own father from the party in 2015. Measures aimed at de-demonisation have included dropping all references to World War II or to the French colonial wars are absent from her speeches, which is often looked on as a generation gap. and distancing herself from her father's views.
Despite Le Pen's attempts to make the National Front more palatable to the international community, the party and Le Pen herself continue to attract criticism.
Leadership of the National Front 2011-2022
First steps as a New leader: 2011
As a president of the Front National, Marine Le Pen currently sits as an ex officio member among the FN Executive Office (8 members), the Executive Committee (42 members) and the Central Committee (3 ex officio members, 100 elected members, 20 co-opted members).
During her opening speech in Tours on 16 January 2011, she advocated to "restore the political framework of the national community" and to implement the direct democracy which enables the "civic responsibility and the collective tie" thanks to the participation of public-spirited citizens for the decisions. The predominant political theme was the uncompromising defence of a protective and efficient state, which favours secularism, prosperity and liberties. She also denounced the "Europe of Brussels" which "everywhere imposed the destructive principles of ultra-liberalism and free trade, at the expense of public utilities, employment, social equity and even our economic growth which became within twenty years the weakest of the world". After the traditional Joan of Arc march and Labour Day march in Paris on 1 May 2011, she gave her first speech in front of 3,000 supporters.
On 10 and 11 September 2011, she made her political comeback with the title "the voice of people, the spirit of France" in the convention center of Acropolis in Nice. During her closing speech she addressed immigration, insecurity, the economic and social situation, reindustrialization and 'strong state'. During a demonstration held in front of the Senate on 8 December 2011, she expressed in a speech her "firm and absolute opposition" to the right of foreigners to vote. She regularly held thematic press conferences and interventions on varied issues in French, European and international politics.
First presidential candidacy: 2011–2012
On 16 May 2011, Marine Le Pen's presidential candidacy was unanimously approved by the FN Executive Committee. On 10 and 11 September 2011, she launched her presidential campaign in Nice. On 6 October 2011, she held a press conference to introduce the members of her presidential campaign team.
On 22 April 2012, she polled 17.90% (6,421,426 votes) in the first round, finishing in third position behind François Hollande and incumbent president Nicolas Sarkozy. She achieved better results, in both percentage vote-share and number of votes, than her father had in the 2002 presidential election (16.86%, 4,804,772 votes in the first round; 17.79%, 5,525,034 votes in the run-off).
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Le Pen polled first in Gard (25.51%, 106,646 votes), with Sarkozy and Hollande polling 24.86% (103,927 votes) and 24.11% (100,778 votes) respectively. She also came first in her municipal stronghold of Hénin-Beaumont (35.48%, 4,924 votes), where Hollande and Sarkozy polled 26.82% (3,723 votes) and 15.76% (2,187 votes) respectively. She achieved her highest results east of the line from Le Havre in the north to Perpignan in the south, and conversely she won fewer votes in western France, especially cities such as Paris, overseas and among French citizens living abroad (5.95%, 23,995 votes). However, she polled well in two rural departments in western France: Orne (20.00%, 34,757 votes) and Sarthe (19.17%, 62,516 votes).
Her highest regional result was in Picardy (25.03%, 266,041 votes), her highest departmental result in Vaucluse (27.03%, 84,585 votes), and her highest overseas result in Saint Pierre and Miquelon (15.81%, 416 votes).
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She achieved her lowest regional result in Île-de-France (12.28%, 655,926 votes), her lowest departmental result in Paris (6.20%, 61,503 votes), and her lowest overseas result in Wallis and Futuna (2.37%, 152 votes).
On 1 May 2012, during a speech delivered in Paris after the traditional Joan of Arc and Labor Day march, Le Pen refused to back either Sarkozy or Hollande in the run-off on 6 May.
Second presidential candidacy: 2016–2017
Marine Le Pen announced her candidacy for the 2017 French presidential election on 8 April 2016.
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She launched her candidacy on 4 and 5 February 2017 in Lyon, promising a referendum on France's membership of the European Union if she could not achieve her territorial, monetary, economic and legislative goals for the country within six months renegotiation with the EU. Her first campaign appearance on television, four days later, received the highest viewing figures on France 2 since the previous presidential election (16.70% with 3.7 million viewers). Her 2017 presidential campaign emphasized Le Pen as a softer, feminine figure, with a blue rose as a prominent campaign symbol.
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Le Pen won 21.3% of the vote (7.7 million votes) in the first round of the election on 23 April 2017, placing her second behind Macron, who received 24.0%, meaning that they would face each other in the run-off on 7 May. On 24 April 2017, the day after the first round of voting, Le Pen announced that she would temporarily step down as the leader of the FN in an attempt to unite voters. "The President of the Republic is the president of all the French people, they must bring them all together," she said.
After progressing to the second round, she said that the campaign was now "a referendum for or against France" and tried to convince those voting for the hard-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon to support her.
On 7 May, she conceded defeat to Emmanuel Macron. Her vote share of 33.9% was lower than any polls had predicted, and was attributed to her poor performance in the debate. She immediately announced a "full transformation" of the FN in the following months.
On 18 May 2017, Le Pen announced that she would run as a candidate at the parliamentary elections in the Pas-de-Calais's 11th constituency, in her fifth attempt to be elected as a deputy. She received just under 46% of the vote in the first round, and won the second with just under 58% against Anne Roquet of En Marche. She became a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the National Assembly. She then resigned as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP).
In 2019, it was reported that Le Pen no longer wants France to leave the European Union, nor for it to leave the euro currency. Instead, it was reported she and her party wants to change the EU bloc from the inside along with allied parties.
On 4 July 2021, she was elected again to lead the National Rally with no opposing candidate.
Third presidential candidacy and legislative election: 2022
In January 2020, Le Pen announced her third candidacy for president of France in the 2022 presidential election. On 15 January 2022, she launched her campaign.
In February 2022, during Le Pen's presidential campaign, Stéphane Ravier, the only Senator from her political party, publicly endorsed her far-right presidential rival Éric Zemmour.
During the first round of the election, Le Pen won second place, with 23.15% of the votes. On 22 April, she participated in a televised debate against Macron. She was defeated in a run-off against Emmanuel Macron on 24 April: on this occasion, she obtained 41.45% of the votes, the highest share of the vote for a nationalist candidate in French history.
It was remarked that a Є10.6 million loan provided by the Hungarian bank MKB Bank chaired by Lőrinc Mészáros, a close ally of Viktor Orban, was used to finance her presidential campaign. The transaction depended on Orban to be completed; normally the bankers would not have done it.
During the 2022 French legislative election which followed soon after, she led her party into winning its highest number of seats in the National Assembly since its founding, RN eventually becoming the largest opposition party in Parliament. Days later, she was elected by acclamation as leader of the parliamentary National Rally party in the Assembly, a position she currently holds.
Standing down
In November 2022 Le Pen stood down from chairing the National Rally. She was succeeded by Jordan Bardella who had previously acted as the party's interim leader during her presidential campaign.
Political positions
Immigration and multiculturalism
Le Pen and the RN advocate a tough line on immigration, believing that multiculturalism has failed, and argue for the "de-Islamisation" of French society. Le Pen has called for a moratorium on legal immigration. She would repeal laws allowing illegal immigrants to become legal residents, and has argued that benefits provided to immigrants be reduced to remove incentives for new immigrants. Following the beginning of the Arab Spring and the European migrant crisis, she called for France to withdraw from the Schengen Area and reinstate border controls.
Economic policy
On energy, Le Pen advocates a policy of energy independence for France, with a strong emphasis on support for nuclear and hydroelectric power. Le Pen is strongly opposed to wind energy due to its intermittency, tax burden in utility bills and impact on the landscape and built heritage. She is proposing a moratorium on new wind energy development on both sea and land from 2022 and the eventual dismantling of all current wind turbines. Le Pen favours protectionism as an alternative to free trade. She supports economic nationalism, the separation of investment and retail banking, and energy diversification, and is opposed to the privatization of public services and social security, speculation on international commodity markets, and is opposed to the Common Agricultural Policy.
Le Pen is opposed to globalization, which she blames for various negative economic trends, and opposes European Union supranationalism and federalism, instead favouring a loosely confederate 'Europe of the Nations'. As of 2019, she no longer advocates for France to leave the EU or euro currency; she had previously called both for France to leave the Eurozone and for a referendum on France leaving the EU. She has been a vocal opponent of the Treaty of Lisbon, and opposes EU membership for Turkey and Ukraine. Le Pen has pledged to take France out of NATO and the US sphere of influence. She proposes the replacement of the World Trade Organization and the abolition of the International Monetary Fund.
Other issues
Regarding feminism, Le Pen often says she identifies as a feminist in the context of defending women's rights and improving women's lives, although she is critical of what she calls "neo-feminism", which she characterises as women going to war against men.
Political mandates
Local mandates
- Regional councillor of Nord-Pas-de-Calais: (15 March 1998 – 28 March 2004); since 26 March 2010: member of the standing committee, leader of the FN group.
- Regional councillor of Île-de-France (28 March 2004 – 21 March 2010): member of the standing committee, leader of the FN group until February 2009.
- Municipal councillor of Hénin-Beaumont (23 March 2008 – 24 February 2011).
European mandates
Member of the European Parliament in the Île-de-France constituency (20 July 2004 – 13 July 2009): Non-Inscrits (20 July 2004 – 14 January 2007/14 November 2007 – 13 July 2009); Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty (15 January 2007 – 13 November 2007).
- Member: Committee on Culture and Education (21 July 2004 – 14 January 2007/15 January 2007 – 30 January 2007), Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (31 January 2007 – 13 July 2009), Delegation for relations with Israel (15 September 2004 – 13 March 2007/14 March 2007 – 13 July 2009)
- Substitute: Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection (21 July 2004 – 14 January 2007/31 January 2007 – 13 July 2009), Delegation for relations with Australia and New Zealand (15 March 2007 – 13 July 2009)
Member of the European Parliament in the North-West France constituency: Non-Inscrits (14 July 2009 – 16 June 2015); ENF
- Member: Committee on Employment and Social Affairs (since 16 July 2009), Delegation to the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly (since 16 September 2009)
- Substitute: Committee on International Trade (since 16 July 2009), Delegation for relations with Canada (16 September 2009 – 14 November 2010)
See also
In Spanish: Marine Le Pen para niños
