Marine Le Pen (born Marion Anne Perrine Le Pen; 5 August 1968) is a lawyer by profession, a French right-wing politician and the president of the Front National (FN), the third-largest political party in France, since 16 January 2011. She is the youngest daughter of the French politician Jean-Marie Le Pen, former president of the FN and currently its honorary chairman, and Marion Maréchal-Le Pen's aunt.
She joined the FN in 1986, its Executive Committee in 2000 and was a vice-president of the FN for eight years (2003–2011). She currently is an ex-officio member of the FN Executive Office, Executive Committee and Central Committee.
She has been a regional councillor since 1998 (Île-de-France: 2004–2010, Nord-Pas-de-Calais: 1998–2004, 2010–present), a Member of the European Parliament since 2004 (Île-de-France: 2004–2009, North-West France: 2009–present) and was a municipal councillor in Hénin-Beaumont, Pas-de-Calais for three years (2008–2011).
In 2010, she was a candidate for the leadership of the FN set up by Jean-Marie Le Pen on 5 October 1972. She successfully succeeded him during the FN congress in Tours, Indre-et-Loire. On 16 January 2011, she was elected with 67.65% (11,546 votes) as the second president of the Front National.
She is described as a significantly more democratic and republican presence than her nationalist father; She wants to considerably reduce immigration although her father wants to abolish it and about a referendum on reinstating capital punishment, she favours life imprisonment without eligibility for parole. Like her father, she strongly opposes same-sex marriage, euthanasia and communitarianism however.
On April 21, 2011, she was ranked 71 in the most influential person in the 2011 Time 100.
She was a candidate in the 2012 French presidential election. On 22 April 2012, she polled 17.90% (6,421,426 votes) in the first round and finished in third position behind François Hollande and incumbent president Nicolas Sarkozy.
Marine Le Pen represented the FN as the FN leader at the legislative election in Pas-de-Calais' 11th constituency, on May 14, 2012. She lost the race by about 100 votes.
Read more about Marine Le Pen: Ideology, Bibliography
Famous quotes containing the words marine and/or pen:
“God has a hard-on for a Marine because we kill everything we see. He plays His game, we play ours.”
—Stanley Kubrick (b. 1928)
“A word is a bud attempting to become a twig. How can one not dream while writing? It is the pen which dreams. The blank page gives the right to dream.”
—Gaston Bachelard (1884–1962)