The French far-right leader, Marine Le Pen, announced Friday that Front National, the party created by her father Jean-Marie Le Pen in 1972, had voted overwhelmingly to rebrand itself Rassemblement National (National Rally) ahead of next year’s European elections.
Le Pen, who won nearly 34 percent of the vote in her losing bid against Emmanuel Macron in last year’s French presidential election, railed angrily against the EU in a speech announcing the name-change at a party meeting in Lyon Friday evening.
“The European people,” she said, “all over are waking up against an old federalist oligarchy that crushes them under its arrogant tyranny.”
Le Pen has broadened support for the party even as she sought to move away from the taint of racial hatred and anti-Semitism associated with her father, who remains a member of the European Parliament.
The party’s new name is a further effort at rebranding, though it has opted to keep its logo of a red, white and blue flame. Rassemblement could also be translated in English as gathering, congregation or grouping. The party seems to prefer the more energetic “Rally.”
In France, where Macron stunned the political establishment by running and winning the presidency as an independent, there have been numerous efforts at rebranding of political parties in recent years, with mixed results.
Union for a Popular Movement, which was formed in 2002 by President Jacques Chirac and became the main center-right party, was renamed in 2015 as Les Republicains — The Republicans — after the defeat of its leader President Nicolas Sarkozy by François Hollande, in the presidential election of 2012. But the new name didn’t help the party or its candidate, François Fillon, who finished third in the first round of last year’s presidential vote.
Macron’s own party was originally known as En Marche! but he lengthened the name to La République En Marche! ahead of national legislative elections last year.