National Rally
The French far right party of the Le Pen family, founded in 1972, renamed from Front National in 2018.
Overview
Founded in 1972 as the Front National, the party spent two decades on the fringes under Jean-Marie Le Pen before his 2002 presidential runoff breakthrough shattered the political system. Marine Le Pen took over in 2011, pursuing dedemonization: expelling the most extreme figures, softening rhetoric, renaming the party Rassemblement National in 2018. The strategy delivered presidential runoffs in 2017 and 2022 and, in 2024, the largest delegation in the European elections, though tactical voting blocked it from national power in the snap elections. Jordan Bardella fronts its youth base. The party combines immigration restriction, law and order, welfare chauvinism, and euroscepticism as the dominant force of the French far right.
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