After Le Pen’s defeat, is the Front National heading for a split?

So what now for Marine Le Pen and the National Front? On an evening when the party polled a record number of votes in a French election, twice as many as when they reached the second round in 2002, there was little sense of triumph away from the cameras. ‘There’s obviously a bit of disappointment, it would be dishonest to say otherwise’, said Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, niece of Marine. She had said last week that 40 per cent of the vote would represent a significant victory for the National Front but their final share of 34 per cent fell some way short of that figure. ‘We’ve clearly not succeeded to convince the French that this was a referendum for or against France, for or against mass immigration’, said Marechal-Le Pen, ‘and evidently these things will make us reflect in the weeks to come’.

Marechal-Le Pen dismissed suggestions that she might lead a putsch against her aunt following the disappointing results, saying that ‘she strongly rejects all media attempts in the coming days that would pit me against Marine Le Pen’. Such a move would be unwise before next month’s legislative elections, where the National Front have set a target of forty seats in the National Assembly, but one step that might be taken between now and then is the removal of Florian Philippot.