National Rally

Marine Le Pen, party leader from 2011 to 2017.

Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder and leader from 1972 to 2011.

The National Rally (French: Rassemblement national or RN) is a far right political party in France. It used to be called the National Front until 2018.

The party was founded on 5 October 1972 by Jean-Marie Le Pen.^[1] The party was first called the National Front for French Unity (Front national pour l'unité française). Their most successful performance in the legislative elections was in 1997, where they received 14.9% of the vote in the 1st round and 5.7% in the 2nd round. Recently, they won the 2014 European Parliament election with 24.85% of the vote.^[2]^[3]^[4]

Only on three occasions has an FN / RN candidate advanced to the second round of the french presidential elections, Jean-Marie Le Pen in 2002 and his daughter Marine Le Pen in 2017, (again in 2022). Jean-Marie Le Pen heavily lost the second round, as he only received 17.8% of the vote; Marine Le Pen also lost the second round, only receiving 33.9% of the vote.^[5]

Jean-Marie Le Pen was leader of the party from 1972 until 2011. In 2011, the party voted to make Marine Le Pen leader.^[6]^[7] She wanted to soften the party's image. Marine Le Pen expelled her father from the party in 2015 after he made some controversial statements.^[8]^[9] On 24 April 2017, a day after the first round of the 2017 French presidential election, Marine Le Pen stepped down from her position.^[10] Steeve Briois is now the temporary leader.

The party is patriotic.^[11] The party is very Eurosceptic^[12] (meaning they are against the European Union) and wants to limit immigration.^[13] Marine Le Pen supports letting the government control health, education, transportation, banking and energy.^[14] Critics say that the ideology of the RN focuses on bad attitudes on immigrants.^[15]

National Rally Media

Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of the National Front from 1972 to 2011
Bruno Mégret and his faction broke out from the FN to form the MNR party
Logo for Le Pen's 2002 presidential campaign
National advertisement in Marseille for Le Pen's 2007 presidential bid
Marine Le Pen, National Front president (2011–2022)
Results by region at the first round of the 2015 French regional elections, with regions where the National Front gained the most votes in grey
Demonstration against the National Front in Paris after the results of the 2014 election
Members of the party's Department for Protection and Security, 2007
Jean-Marie Le Pen - "Convention présidentielle du Front national", 25 février 2007, Lille / France