On Sunday after the second round of the legislative elections, her party, the Front National is expected to pick up between five and seven seats. After having lost to Emmanuel Macron in the presidential elections, Le Pen announced that she would contest a parliamentary seat, as it was crucial to have lawmakers opposing Macron’s policies.
Once again Le Pen criticised France’s electoral system, saying that proportional representation would give her party many more seats in parliament.
“Its a scandal that our party that picked 7.6 million votes in the first round of the presidential election and three million more in the second round, cannot form a group in the French parliament,” the FN leader said.
A group can only be formed if a party wins 15 seats, which would grant it more access to funding as well as more speaking time.
Le Pen won 59 percent of the votes in a convincing victory against her novice rival in Henin- Beaumont, a depressed former mining town, the National Front spokesman Steeve Briois confirmed.
She easily won the first round of voting against no less than 12 rivals, and went on to beat a contender from new president Emmanuel Macron’s La Republique en Marche (REM), Anne Roquet.
Le Pen’s partner and party deputy Louis Aliot won his seat in south western France.
Florian Philippot, her righthand man in the National Front (FN), could not win the seat he was fighting, losing in the former industrial area of Moselle in eastern France. Philippot was heavily criticised as being responsible for her loss, after Marine failed to beat Macron.
Gilbert Collard, another top adviser and one of only two anti-immgration lawmakers in the 2012-2017 parliament, lost his seat too.