"L'Etat, c'est Marine"

Much is being written about Marine Le Pen at the right-wing websites. Few of the reports I've read are unreservedly confident in her ability to lead the Front National as a party of tradition. Most recognize her qualities as a debater on television and her strong personality, but everyone seems to be waiting for her to let the mask fall and admit openly that she is ideologically a jacobin (meaning she is for centralized State control over everything including the regions with their separate identities, as was the French Revolution) and tolerant of Islam within the framework of "laïcité". Here is a short article from Novopress, the news agency of the Bloc Identitaire:

In her first speech as president of the Front National, Marine Le Pen launched into a veritable apology of the State, demanding a strong State ("un Etat fort"). Faced with financial markets and globalization, "the key is the State", she affirmed, adding: "France and the French people more than ever need a strong State." Lauding the "Republic that forged the nation" and enumerating "territorial, political, juridical and institutional unification and linguistic unification" the president of the Front National made references to Clovis, Henri IV, Bonaparte and even to the public schoolmasters of the Third Republic (known as "hussards noirs"). She denounced decentralization and hammered home the message that "The State has become the backbone of the France we love." Madame Le Pen even declared: "The State is one of the components of the soul of France."

Another Novopress article gives more excerpts from the speech:

In her first speech as president of the Front National, a speech that was intended as a preview of her presidential program, Marine Le Pen barely mentioned the question of immigration, which was until then the heart of the political combat of the FN. Not once does the word "immigrant" appear in her speech. The word "immigration" is used three times: in deploring that if Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Nicolas Sarkozy were the two Establishment candidates, the French people would have to choose "between immigration and immigration", and in her indignation over the "stifling and destructive stranglehold of Brussels" that leaves France no "margin for maneuver" in the matter of "immigration management."

So it seems that the new leadership of the Front National has no intention of stopping any new non-European immigration. Even less of initiating massive repatriations of immigrants to their homelands. Because of this rupture with the "foundations" of the Front National, priority will now be given to the fight against "Islamization" and "communitarianism" which, however, have always been treated in the traditional platform of the FN as being the consequences of massive immigration. Priority too to the struggle against globalization: Marine Le Pen is considering, as an example, nationalizing "those banks that are insensitive to ethical responsibilities."

Note: It is too soon to blame her. She has to be given a chance to prove herself. But her every word is being closely watched for signs that she will make of the Front National the Nationalist Left instead of the Nationalist Right.