When a new actor appears on the world political stage, Americans don’t always know what to make of them. With the Front National rising in the polls and their leader, Marine Le Pen, making the news in the U.S., French Morning presents a rough domestic equivalency of the FN leader.
Donald Trump
Like Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen’s chances at the presidency were largely inherited. While Trump launched himself to billionaire status using the bootstraps his parents gave him, Le Pen used the platform built by her father, Front National founder Jean-Marie Le Pen.
Ideologically, Trump wants to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border to stop the flow of undocumented immigrants; he’s also super into denying all Muslims entry into the country, while making all Muslims register with a government database. Le Pen, for her part, is simply done with immigration: “My aim is clear: to stop immigration both legal and illegal.” She also likened a potential British exit from the EU to the first brick removed from the Berlin Wall, hoping that it would lead to the end of the bloc and, likely, the borderless Schengen Zone.
Le Pen doesn’t have the bold swagger of the Donald when it comes to saying things and letting the fact checkers sort them out, but she has walked out of an interview with France Inter that she said had become a “live fact-checking session,” so both politicians bristle at being corrected.
Who said it, Donald or Marine? “You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on.”
George W. Bush
George Walker and Marine are both scions of political families, although it’s hard to equate the Le Pens with the Bushes. George Herbert Walker Bush was a former CIA director, the elected Vice President and President of the United States, while Jean-Marie Le Pen has made it to the European Parliament and French regional council. On the other hand, H.W. doesn’t own a castle—just a compound in Kennebunkport, the Paris of Maine.
Who said it, George or Marine? “A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there’s no question about it.”
Ben Carson
Ben Carson, accomplished neurosurgeon and amateur archaeologist, believes that the biblical Joseph built the pyramids in Egypt in order to store grain and other foods, instead of, you know, the Pharaohs building them as tombs, as archeologists have nailed down. Marine Le Pen, with a similar lack of research, thinks that Muslims praying outside of a crowded mosque in Lyon is comparable to the Nazi occupation of France. As historians might point out, the Nazis did not enter France because Germany had reached capacity according to the local building code, nor did they conquer by becoming French citizens, contributing to their local communities, and turning into valued friends and neighbors.
The two both have post-graduate degrees, although Le Pen is doubly a Master in law, while Carson has a Masters in psychology and a medical doctorate. Neither, it should be noted, is a rocket scientist.
Who said it, Ben or Le Pen? “Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB/GYNs aren’t able to practice their love with women all across the country.”
Rand Paul
Both are relatively tamer versions of their political parents, but Marie at least escaped birth without being named after a Russian objectivist novelist living on another country’s welfare system, though.
Who said it, Rand or Marine? “I’ve abandoned free market principles to save the free market system.”
The Republicans
Not to be confused with Les Républicains, the American Republican party is down with defunding Planned Parenthood, because they think federal funding goes to abortion services, which is literally the only thing federal funds don’t pay for at Planned Parenthood. Effectively, they want to defund free pap smears, breast cancer screenings, medically indicative ball squeezes, and the like.
Unsatisfied with that kind of cognitive dissonance, most are supporters of the death penalty. The oldest person to ever be on death row in the United States, a career criminal with the improbable name Viva Leroy Nash, died of natural causes in his 381st trimester.
If you’re into the kind of cognitive dissonance associated with supporting both abortion bans and the death penalty, Marie Le Pen may not be the droid you’re looking for, but she has supported holding a referendum on bringing back the death penalty (banned in France since 1981).
Her niece, Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, has promised to remove state subsidies from family planning centers if elected to regional council in Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, and according to International Business Times, the FN remains anti-abortion with Marine at the helm, and her opponents say that she wants to remove government subsidies for abortions.
Who said it, a Republican or Marine? “I have written a book. This will come as quite a shock to some. They didn’t think I could read, much less write.”
Bernie Sanders
You probably didn’t see this one coming. If a person says that Barack Obama “is way to the right of us,” where do you go from there? (Unless she was referring to how long it takes to get to America flying east from France.) On economic issues, Le Pen is decidedly liberal, writing screeds against capitalism and decrying “the inevitable quest for profitability” in private companies. Sound familiar? By the simple virtue of being French, Marine agrees with Bernie on free college education, as well. In addition, Bernie Sanders is Jewish, while Marine’s father has long been accused of anti-Semitism and, according to his ex-wife, calls Adolf Hitler “Uncle Dolfie.”
Who said it, Bernie or Marine? “There are certain domains which are so vital to the well-being of citizens that they must at all costs be kept out of the private sector and the law of supply and demand.”
Featured image: Stock Photos from Frederic Legrand – COMEO/Shutterstock
