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4 Jul, 2021 14:21

Marine Le Pen re-elected as leader of French right-wing National Rally party

Marine Le Pen re-elected as leader of French right-wing National Rally party

Marine Le Pen has been re-elected as the leader of France’s right-wing National Rally party. With less than a year to go until France’s next presidential election, polls show Le Pen nipping at President Emmanuel Macron’s heels.

Le Pen was re-elected at a party congress on Sunday, winning 98% support and facing no competition. 

“Your confidence honors and obliges me,” Le Pen tweeted after the vote. “Unite for victory!”

Her re-election comes ahead of a presidential showdown against incumbent Emmanuel Macron next April, and polls show Le Pen within two points of the centrist president. However, France’s two-round electoral system makes it likely that even in the event of a first-round victory, opposition parties would team up to defeat her in the second round of voting, a system that Le Pen herself recently described as “unnatural.”

Moreover, her National Rally party performed dismally in regional elections last week, failing to pick up a single seat in several districts where victory was predicted.

Also on rt.com The weekend’s elections show that Marine Le Pen will never achieve her dream of being French president

Yet Macron’s La Republique En Marche (LREM) failed to make an impact during regional voting, winning just 7% of the vote amid historically low turnout. Candidates from the traditional center-right and socialist left, however, performed well.

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