Le Pen to make last stand in 2007

PARIS, Dec 1 (AFP) – The next presidential election in France in 2007 will likely be the last attempt by far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen to take a shot at the top job, his daughter Marine told a magazine.

“It is probable that 2007 will be the last presidential election for Jean-Marie Le Pen,” she told the December-January issue of Optimum.Marine Le Pen has been groomed by her father to take over the reins of his National Front party when he retires.

Jean-Marie Le Pen, 75, stunned France in last year’s presidential elections when he managed to beat Lionel Jospin, the Socialist candidate and then-prime minister, in the first round to take on incumbent Jacques Chirac in the run-off.

A public backlash against Le Pen gave Chirac a landslide win and firmly pushed the National Front into the political background, though Marine Le Pen, who is now the party’s vice-president, plans to bring it back by widening its appeal and toning down its nationalist rhetoric.

© AFP

                                                                Subject: French news