Trouble Already?

Marine Le Pen has not been president of the Front National two days, and already trouble is brewing.

The cofounder of the Front National, former Resistance fighter Roger Holeindre, a leading figure of the extreme Right for more than forty years, created an uproar when he announced to the Journal du Dimanche his intention to leave the party after the election of Marine Le Pen to the presidency:

The startled look on the faces of party members who had come to have him sign his latest book will change nothing. Behind the stand that he occupied on the ground floor of the Tours convention center, Roger Holeindre announced his departure from the Front National, the party that he, with Jean-Marie Le Pen, cofounded in 1972. The reason for this sudden defection: the election, not yet official, of Marine Le Pen to the presidency of the party of the extreme Right.

"Marine Le Pen in no way represents the values that I have always defended," he said in a loud voice and a sweep of the hand. Roger Holeindre, today 83, was one of the youngest Resistance fighters.

Shocked, as were many others in Tours, that the results of the election were "leaked" to the press twenty-four hours before the official announcement, the former deputy refuses to participate in a Front National that is "under the eyes of the media". "I don't need to be labeled old-fashioned, I have never been old-fashioned, or else that would mean that I've just been speaking like an idiot for fifty years," thunders this member of the political bureau of the FN, in reference to Marine Le Pen's plan to "un-demonize" the party.

A supporter of Bruno Gollnisch in the race for the position held by Jean-Marie Le Pen, Roger Holleindre, who represents the nationalist solidarity movement within the FN, feels that "the ideas I defend for France and Europe will still have to be defended under Marine Le Pen." And even if the former paratrooper is not urging anyone to cut and run ("I am not one to bite the hand that feeds me"), he has nonetheless bet on there being other defections from the ranks of the Front National.

For now, this announcement has had the effect of a bomb within the leadership of Le Pen's party. The treasurer of the party, Wallerand de Saint-Just, a supporter of Marine Le Pen, expressed his profound astonishment, and called on all those in Gollnisch's camp "not to sink into paranoia". A member of the political bureau and a close associate of Bruno Gollnisch, Bruno Subtil, taken by surprise, spoke of an "extremely grave and damaging decision for our party."

French readers can find thirty-eight comments, many of them favorable to Roger Holeindre, at Le Salon Beige.