The National Front loses its golden girl

The golden girl of the National Front has gone and with her go the grassroot hopes for an alternative to Marine Le Pen. The decision of Marion Maréchal-Le Pen to withdraw from political life wasn’t entirely unexpected, rumours first emerged earlier in the year, but it is nonetheless a heavy blow for the party rank and file just days after their disappointing presidential election result.

And it was a disappointment, no matter how Marine Le Pen tries to dress up her 34 per cent share of the vote in Sunday’s second round against Emmanuel Macron. The truth is that she was trounced by a political novice with a manifesto that is worryingly vague in certain key areas. Many of the far right faithful therefore saw Maréchal-Le Pen as the pretender to the National Front throne but the 27-year-old has, in the words of Le Figaro, ‘thrown in the sponge’.

In a two page letter published in Wednesday’s edition of Le