Marine Le Pen: France Should Leave NATO, "Turn Its Back" on the American "Hyper-Power", and "Turn Towards Russia"

Leftists in France, and all over the world, have tarnished America's conservatives by comparing them to the alleged fascists in what they call the Le Pens' ultra-right Front National party. Meanwhile — and conversely — America's (rightfully skeptical) conservatives have wondered whether France's Front National isn't perhaps the equivalent of the Tea Party in another sense, of simply being common sense-minded free marketers, falsely accused of being far right and "fascistic". Indeed, now that a new, younger generation of leaders has taken over the FN and a younger Le Pen has replaced the older one, maybe there is something more inviting in the party?

As it turns out, the castigators of America's conservatives are wrong — fortunately or unfortunately, as you would have it — as are America's conservatives.

It seems that if anything, Jean-Marie Le Pen's ideas in the 1980s and the 1990s might — might — have been close to those of the Tea Partiers, at least as far as a French journalist like Le Monde's Jonathan Parienté might be concerned (Jean-Marie Le Pen did use to be a big admirer of Ronald Reagan), but his daughter is the one who is, or who has become, radically anti-free-market and anti-American.

Not only has Marine Le Pen said that Obama is way to the right of us (many more examples at the hyperlink), she is now denouncing the American "hyper power" and saying that she would prefer that France should leave NATO, turn its back on America, and turn towards Russia.

In the 1980s, Jean-Marie Le Pen had been a sympathizer of Atlanticist policy, something that he abandoned during the war in Iraq. Marine Le Pen is highly critical of U.S. foreign policy [even in the age of Obama's smart diplomacy?!]. She wants France to exit NATO. And in a recent interview with the Russian daily Kommersant, she explained that she would prefer that France "turn towards Russia," all the while "turning its back on the United States," something that, she believes, the current crisis [echoes of Rahm Emanuel's pet phrase?], allows the country to consider doing.

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… l'idéologie de Marine Le Pen […] dénonce la "toute puissance" américaine. …

Depuis qu'elle a amorcé son ascension à la tête du parti d'extrême droite, M^me Le Pen a infléchi la position que défendait son père dans les années 70 et 80 qui, économiquement, avait une certaine proximité avec celle défendue aujourd'hui par les Tea. Le Front national se bat désormais pour "bâtir un Etat fort et stratège" qu'il conspuait jadis.

… En 2007, le dernier programme présidentiel de l'ancien élu poujadiste trace une nouvelle voie. L'"étatisme" et le "syndicalisme archaïque" ne sont plus les seuls maux de l'économie. Il faut désormais y ajouter le "mondialisme ultra-libéral".

Marine Le Pen a poussé plus loin cette logique. Réhabilitation de l’Etat fort qui doit orienter l’économie, souveraineté monétaire et retour au franc, protectionnisme, remplacement du clivage droite gauche par celui des nationaux contre les mondialistes, constituent désormais la base de son programme.

Dans les années 1980, Jean-Marie Le Pen avait eu une sympathie atlantiste qu'il a abandonnée au moment de la guerre en Irak. Marine Le Pen est très critique sur la politique étrangère des Etats-Unis. Elle prône la sortie de l'OTAN. Et, dans un entretien accordé récemment au quotidien russe Kommersant, elle expliquait préférer que la France se "tourne vers la Russie" tout en "tournant le dos aux Etats-Unis", ce que, estime-t-elle, la crise actuelle lui permet d'envisager.