What Marine Le Pen can learn from Donald Trump

The reaction of Marine Le Pen and her party to the stunning triumph of Donald Trump was curiously flat. Emmanuel Macron tweeted his congratulations to the 47th President of the United States early on Wednesday morning, an hour before there was any reaction from Le Pen, the woman who had once been proud to liken herself to a Gallic Trump. When it came, Le Pen’s message was tepid. She wished him ‘every success’, and added: ‘This new political era should contribute to the strengthening of bilateral relations and the pursuit of constructive dialogue and cooperation on the international stage.’

Contrast her message with that of another so-called European populist, Geert Wilders, who could barely contain himself: ‘Patriots are winning elections all over the world,’ exclaimed the Dutchman. ‘The liberal-leftish woke driven nihilists are full of disbelief and hate and unfit to give the people what they truly want: freedom and their own nation first.