Keyword: Rassemblement national

Several senior membners of France's far-right party, the former Front National now renamed the Rassemblement National, which claims on opinion survey results to be the country's most popular opposition party, went on trial in Paris on Wednesday accused of a scam to defraud the electoral subsidies accorded to political parties in the 2012 national election campaigns.

The state prosecutor in Bayonne Marc Mariée.

Claude Sinké, aged 84, a former local election candidate for the far-right Front National – now called Rassemblement National – is in custody for the attack on a mosque in Bayonne in south-west France on October 28th 2019. He told detectives his aim was to “avenge the destruction” of Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris from a fire which he blames on Muslims. Marine Le Pen and the rest of the RN leadership have been quick to distance themselves from their former activist. But Claude Sinké had been adopted as a candidate for the far-right party in 2015 despite posting hate-filled messages on Facebook. Marine Turchi and Matthieu Suc examine the far right party's handling of its supporters and look at the growing threat posed by right-wing extremists in France and across Europe.

Source that 84-year-old suspect had been a candidate for Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National party in 2015.

The woman accompanying a school party who was asked by a far-right councillor to leave a regional council meeting in France because she was wearing a Muslim headscarf, a shocking incident captured in a photo of her distressed son breaking into tears, has decided to file an official complaint with prosecuton services for 'violence of a racial nature'.

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen in Paris on January 13th 2019. © Reuters

The far-right Rassemblement National – the former Front National – was in serious financial difficulty after the Parliamentary and presidential elections in 2017 and was bailed out by a loan of 8 million euros. That loan, Mediapart can reveal, came from French businessman Laurent Foucher who has a range of commercial interests in Africa and who is close to Nicolas Sarkozy's former right-hand man Claude Guéant. The loan was transferred from a bank in the United Arab Emirates but questions still remain over the precise origin of the money. Karl Laske and Marine Turchi report.

French President Emmanuel Macron has told a meeting of MPs from his ruling LREM party that it must shed its middle-class image and adopt a hard line towards illegal immigration which he said was pushing the working class 'who live with it' into the arms of the far-right.

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen casting her vote in the May 2019 European Parliament elections. © Reuters

The French far-right Rassemblement National (RN) party, the renamed Front National, held its post-summer congress this weekend in the south-east town of Fréjus, when its leader Marine Le Pen set out the party’s policies ahead of municipal elections to be held across the country in six months’ time. The RN, which won the majority of votes cast in France in European Parliament elections in May, hopes to at last solidly establish itself at a local level, amid a fragmented political landscape in the country and notably the collapse of the conservatives. In this interview with Lucie Delaporte, French political scientist Sylvain Crépon, a specialist of far-right politics, analyses the party’s new strategy for the elections.

Results of the European Elections in France, in vote share and seats won. © Mediapart

The European Election results in France have confirmed that Marine Le Pen's Rassemblement National – the former Front National – is once again the main opposition in the country to President Emmanuel Macron and his ruling La République en Marche. But outside of that polarised duel the rest of the French political landscape has been shattered,with an abstention rate of 49%. On the Left the environmentalists came top with 13% while on the Right the conservative Les Républicains – the party of former president Nicolas Sarkozy – has collapsed, picking up just 8% of the vote. Stéphane Alliès and Lénaïg Bredoux analyse the results in France.

Following revelations of previously unseen footage of US President Donald Trump's former advisor Steve Bannon taking part in discussions in London with France's far-right Rassemblement National party, broadcast by a French TV current affairs programme and during which he was invited and accepted to discuss with the party's sympathisers from among France's high-ranking civil servants, has prompted calls for a parliamentary inquiry. 

Far-right Rassemblement National party leader Marine Le Pen. © Reuters

To fund its campaign for this month’s European Parliament elections, the French far-right Rassemblement National party (the renamed Front National) has raised around 4 million euros through so-called “patriotic” loans from its members and supporters, to who it has promised a 5% interest rate. The party will submit the amounts raised, with interest, in its application for a post-election refund of campaign spending that is granted to parties and paid out of the public purse. The generous interest payments paid to its lending members and supporters will cost the taxpayer around 200,000 euros, and the party says it plans employing the same strategy in future elections. Marine Turchi reports.

In a speech on Sunday to supporters of her Rassemblement National (National Rally) party in the southern French town of Fréjus, far-right leader Marine Le Pen said her party would campaign 'in liaison' with its Europe of Nations and Freedom party allies for next May’s European Parliament elections, which President Emmanuel Macron has billed as a battle between anti-immigrant populists like Le Pen and pro-European Union progressives like himself.

The youth arms of France's Rassemblement national (National Rally) party, formerly called the Front National, and its far-right Italian ally, the League, staged a joint demonstration near the French-Italian border on Sunday to demand tough measures against what they said was the 'overwhelming' of Europe by migrants.

French judges have blocked the payment of more than £2 million in state subsidies to the far-Right party, newly named Rassemblement National.

Marine Le Pen's far-right party is now Rassemblement National or National Rally in bid to broaden appeal ahead of European elections next year.