The right-hand man of French National Front chief Marine Le Pen quit the party on Thursday, a split that opens the way for policy changes in the far-right party and shows the depth of internal feuding after Le Pen’s presidential election defeat, reports Reuters.
The departure of Florian Philippot, for years Le Pen’s closest aide and a key architect of efforts to detoxify the party’s image while campaigning against the euro, had looked increasingly inevitable as the party bickered over who was to blame for a damaging electoral cycle.
His exit is expected to allow Le Pen to refocus on core policies around immigration and French national identity, while perhaps softening her anti-euro tone, which many say contributed to Le Pen’s resounding defeat in the presidential election run-off.
While Philippot’s departure is likely to increase turmoil in the party at first and others have already said they would follow him out the door, the FN has survived similar crises in the past and analysts expect it to do the same this time. Philippot is seen as too divisive within the far-right to create a party that would be a serious threat.
Le Pen, who has shown a sometimes ruthless determination to hold on to power in the National Front, having already pushed out her father Jean-Marie, the founder of the party, withdrew Philippot’s responsibilities within the movement late on Wednesday, leaving him with little choice about his future.
“I‘m not into being ridiculed, I‘m not into having nothing to do. And so yes, of course, I‘m quitting the National Front,” Philippot, 35 and a graduate of France’s elite administrative school ENA, told France 2 television.
Le Pen, who just last year spoke of having an “intellectual crush” on Philippot, responded tersely that the FN would have no problems of getting over his departure.
“One should stop trying to bury the National Front,” she told LCP television. “Every time people have tried to do it, it came out better-structured, stronger and more powerful.”
The National Front, which has made major inroads in local, regional and European elections over the past decade without winning any major constituency, will hold a congress in March where internal differences since its defeat to Emmanuel Macron and his new party will come to a head.
The far-right party has tried to portray itself as the main voice of opposition against Macron. But that mantle has so far been assumed by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of the far-left France Insoumise (France Unbowed), who is calling for mass demonstrations against the president’s economic reforms.
Appearing on France’s RTL Radio on Thursday, Mélenchon reveled in the turmoil on the far-right.