Islam versus Europe

She is blonde, 22, and grew up in a wealthy Paris suburb before enrolling on a Master of Law course.

But yesterday Marion Maréchal-Le Pen was held up as the worrying face of the ultra-Right as France’s Socialist Party tried to prevent her from being elected an MP.

The grand-daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of the National Front, illustrated her family’s sway over the electorate with a notable performance in Sunday’s first round of the parliamentary election.

Miss Maréchal-Le Pen stunned commentators by coming top in the southern Carpentras constituency where she is a candidate, pushing Jean-Michel Ferrand, her centre-Right opponent and a local MP for 26 years, into second place. The result was one of two successes for the dynasty. Mr Le Pen’s daughter, Marine, who succeeded him as party leader, triumphed in the Hénin-Beaumont constituency in the north of the country.

Both women could win seats in next Sunday’s second round, becoming the first ultra-Right candidates to sit in Parliament since 1988 (with a brief exception in 1997 when the Front won a victory that was cancelled for electoral irregularities).

Speaking like a seasoned politician, Miss Maréchal-Le Pen, whose mother Yann organises National Front rallies, said she was determined to win the constituency despite a “scandalous” first-past-the-post system that deprived her party of MPs.

“It’s incredible that 20 per cent of the electorate is not represented in Parliament,” she said, as she rejected suggestions that she was too young.. “I have come here to win, not just to take part.”

The National Front results took the sheen off what was otherwise a triumph for President Hollande, who is almost certain to obtain a left-wing majority next weekend.

But his Socialist allies are doing everything possible to keep the ultra Right out of the National Assembly. Martine Aubry, the Socialists’ First Secretary, ordered Catherine Arkilovitch, the party’s candidate in Carpentras, who took nearly 22 per cent of the vote, to pull out of the second round and leave a clear run for Mr Ferrand, who should win most of her votes.

The move significantly reduces Miss Maréchal-Le Pen’s hopes of election, even though she obtained 34.63 per cent of the first-round vote compared with 30.03 per cent for Mr Ferrand.
Denouncing the law student as “obviously worrying”, Mrs Aubry said: “We are calling on everyone to form a barrage against the National Front.”