French Far-Right Leader Le Pen Softens Image for Election

Marine Le Pen walks on stage, at a National Rally event in Frejus, Sunday, Sept. 12, 2021. (AP)
Marine Le Pen walks on stage, at a National Rally event in Frejus, Sunday, Sept. 12, 2021. (AP)
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French Far-Right Leader Le Pen Softens Image for Election

Marine Le Pen walks on stage, at a National Rally event in Frejus, Sunday, Sept. 12, 2021. (AP)
Marine Le Pen walks on stage, at a National Rally event in Frejus, Sunday, Sept. 12, 2021. (AP)

French nationalist leader Marine Le Pen has softened her rhetoric and her image to broaden her appeal in next week’s presidential election — but is under threat from a provocative rival who has broken her monopoly as the watchdog of the country’s identity that they claim is under threat.

For more than a decade, Le Pen has been known for her fierce anti-immigration stance, seeing herself as standing guard at the parapets of French civilization. Now she is honing in on consumers' buying power, the top concern for voters.

“I obviously consider that immigration and insecurity are serious problems which need urgent answers, but there’s not just that,” said Le Pen, head of the National Rally party, during a TV show featuring voters’ questions. “I worry about making ends meet as much as the end of France.”

Meanwhile, Eric Zemmour, 63, a political novice running under the banner of his newly created Reconquest! party, is now portraying himself as the protector of old France, with bold proposals on immigration and Islam. He has proposed a “Remigration Ministry,” equipped with airplanes to expedite the expulsions of what he says are undesirable migrants.

Their rivalry illustrates France’s increasing tilt toward the hard right and how that has set the agenda for the presidential election, held in two rounds on April 10 and 24. While polls suggest centrist President Emmanuel Macron is the front-runner, nearly half of respondents say they're ready to vote for a far-right candidate in the decisive runoff.

And that's despite the fact that Zemmour, a TV pundit who models himself after former US President Donald Trump, has been convicted three times of inciting racial or religious hatred.

Zemmour, who said he entered the race to “save France,” has made the conspiracy theory known as the “great replacement” the centerpiece of his campaign. The term evokes a false white supremacist claim that immigrants and other people of color — notably Muslims — are supplanting natives of Western countries and will one day erase Christian civilization.

He recently alleged that without a stop to immigration, France will become “an African nation, an Islamic nation” in 10-20 years. A large majority of French people are white Catholics, and immigration evolution statistics contradict his claim.

Zemmour’s political goal is to create a “union of the right,” bringing together conservatives, including traditional Catholics, and far-right parties. Le Pen, who also decries “migratory submersion,” says her goal is the “union of France.”

Polls of voters suggest that Le Pen’s focus on pocketbook issues may be working. They show her consistently second to Macron, with Zemmour in third or fourth place. That could put her in a runoff against Macron, a repeat of their 2017 standoff, which she lost 66%-34%.

This time, the two far-right candidates together are drawing more support than the centrist president, making their supporters a threat to the established order.

A low voter turnout could render useless all pre-election calculations. Le Pen’s party is still stinging from her party’s failure in last summer’s regional balloting, blamed on a turnout of only 33% of voters in the first round.

Le Pen’s emphasis on buying power is in line with her work to detoxify her party since taking the reins from her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the firebrand leader of what was then the National Front. She changed the party name and then expelled him after he reiterated antisemitic remarks for which he was once convicted.

Her father, who now backs her new presidential bid, once compared her to Diet Coke, saying that her ridding the party of hard-liners was like diluting its values.

A batch of officials and their supporters have deserted her for the more extreme Zemmour. She slammed most of them with insults — except for her niece, Marion Marechal, a popular former lawmaker who has returned to politics to help Zemmour.

“Poor Marion,” Le Pen said, lamenting Marechal's role as a “life preserver” for Zemmour.

Sylvain Crepon, a National Rally specialist, said Zemmour doesn’t pose a serious threat. He says it is Le Pen who embodies nationalist ideas, and “in the end, voters prefer the original to the copy.”

The 53-year-old Le Pen, who represents northern France and is in her third presidential race, has adopted a less-aggressive tone, and she has all but ditched her signature navy blue wardrobe in favor of pastels.

On policy issues, she is stressing concerns that speak to those struggling to make ends meet. She also has dropped her earlier goals of quitting the European Union and abandoning the euro.

But her nationalist strain remains firm. If elected, Le Pen plans drastic measures — to be put to a vote in a nationwide referendum — to contain immigration and “eradicate” political Islam. Among them is ending the policy of family regrouping, which allows immigrants to take up French residence if a close relative is a resident. Like Zemmour, she would expel delinquent foreigners and those who have not been employed for at least a year.

She says she honors the religion of Islam but vows to ban Muslims from wearing headscarves on the street, calling them an “Islamist uniform.”

In public appearances, however, the spotlight is often on the everyday problems of the middle class and the working class, her base of support. Her platform calls for measures to soften the blow of rising prices, like slashing taxes on energy bills from 20% to 5.5%. Le Pen promises to put 150-200 euros per month back in people’s pockets.

“What she has understood is subjects that interest the French that are not ideological topics” like paying bills, said Jean-Yves Camus, a leading expert on the far right.

“Eric Zemmour says that the only important subject is the end of France," Camus said. “The French don’t necessarily believe that France is finished. And if you want France not to be finished, you have to give it buying power.”

For Macron, Le Pen is the candidate to beat.

The Macron camp has worried openly about an electoral “accident," perhaps through low turnout by moderate voters, that could put Le Pen in power.

Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire decried Le Pen's “stupefying metamorphosis.”

“Don’t let yourselves believe that we’re the elite and she is the people,” the French press quoted him as saying on a visit to Normandy.

Romain Lopez, mayor of the southwestern town of Moissac and a member of Le Pen’s party, says he'll vote for Zemmour in the first round but will support Le Pen in the runoff if Zemmour fails.

“Zemmour gave himself a glass ceiling with his excesses of language,” said Lopez, citing the policies of “remigration.”

Lopez is looking past the election, when he believes a new party will emerge on the right with a major role for Le Pen's niece, Marechal.

For far-right expert Camus, Zemmour has helped Le Pen by making her appear more palatable.

A presidential candidate must bring voters together, and that's what Le Pen has done, he said.

“At some point, you are obliged, as the French say, to put water in your wine, accept compromise,” Camus said. "You’re obliged to make proposals that unite not 40% of voters but 50.1%.”



What to Know About the Flash Floods in Texas That Killed over 100 People

 Firefighters from Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, transport a recovered body on the flooded Guadalupe River days after a flash flood swept through the area, Monday, July 7, 2025, in Ingram, Texas. (AP)
Firefighters from Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, transport a recovered body on the flooded Guadalupe River days after a flash flood swept through the area, Monday, July 7, 2025, in Ingram, Texas. (AP)
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What to Know About the Flash Floods in Texas That Killed over 100 People

 Firefighters from Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, transport a recovered body on the flooded Guadalupe River days after a flash flood swept through the area, Monday, July 7, 2025, in Ingram, Texas. (AP)
Firefighters from Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, transport a recovered body on the flooded Guadalupe River days after a flash flood swept through the area, Monday, July 7, 2025, in Ingram, Texas. (AP)

Flash floods in Texas killed at least 100 people over the Fourth of July holiday weekend and left others still missing, including girls attending a summer camp. The devastation along the Guadalupe River, outside of San Antonio, has drawn a massive search effort as officials face questions over their preparedness and the speed of their initial actions.

Here's what to know about the deadly flooding, the colossal weather system that drove it in and around Kerr County, Texas, and ongoing efforts to identify victims.

Massive rain hit at just the wrong time, in a flood-prone place

The floods grew to their worst at the midpoint of a long holiday weekend when many people were asleep.

The Texas Hill Country in the central part of the state is naturally prone to flash flooding due to the dry dirt-packed areas where the soil lets rain skid along the surface of the landscape instead of soaking it up. Friday's flash floods started with a particularly bad storm that dropped most of its 12 inches (30 centimeters) of rain in the dark early morning hours.

After a flood watch notice midday Thursday, the National Weather Service office issued an urgent warning around 4 a.m. that raised the potential of catastrophic damage and a severe threat to human life. By at least 5:20 a.m., some in the Kerrville City area say water levels were getting alarmingly high. The massive rain flowing down hills sent rushing water into the Guadalupe River, causing it to rise 26 feet (8 meters) in just 45 minutes.

Death toll is expected to rise and the number of missing is uncertain

In Kerr County, home to youth camps in the Texas Hill Country, searchers have found the bodies of 75 people, including 27 children, Sheriff Larry Leitha said Monday morning. Fatalities in nearby counties brought the total number of deaths to 94 as of Monday afternoon.

Ten girls and a counselor were still unaccounted for at Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp along the river.

For past campers, the tragedy turned happy memories into grief.

Beyond the Camp Mystic campers unaccounted for, the number of missing from other nearby campgrounds and across the region had not been released.

Gov. Greg Abbott on Sunday had said that there were 41 people confirmed to be unaccounted for across the state and more could be missing.

Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice said during a Monday news conference he couldn't give an estimate of the number of people still missing, only saying “it is a lot.”

Officials face scrutiny over flash flood warnings

Survivors have described the floods as a “pitch black wall of death” and said they received no emergency warnings.

Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, who lives along the Guadalupe River, said Saturday that “nobody saw this coming.” Officials have referred to it as a “100-year-flood,” meaning that the water levels were highly unlikely based on the historical record.

And records behind those statistics don’t always account for human-caused climate change. Though it’s hard to connect specific storms to a warming planet so soon after they occur, meteorologists say that a warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture and allow severe storms to dump even more rain.

Additionally, officials have come under scrutiny about why residents and youth summer camps along the river were not alerted sooner than 4 a.m. or told to evacuate.

Rice said Monday that he did not immediately know if there had been any communication between law enforcement and the summer camps between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m. on Friday. But Rice said various factors, including spotty cell service in some of the more isolated areas of Kerr County and cell towers that might have gone out of service during the weather, could have hindered communication.

Rice said officials want to finish the search and rescue and then review possible issues with cell towers, radios and emergency alerts.

Officials noted that the public can grow weary from too many flooding alerts or forecasts that turn out to be minor.

Kerr county officials said they had presented a proposal for a more robust flood warning system, similar to a tornado warning system, but that members of the public reeled at the cost.

Monumental clearing and rebuilding effort

The flash floods have erased campgrounds and torn homes from their foundations.

"It’s going to be a long time before we’re ever able to clean it up, much less rebuild it," Kelly said Saturday after surveying the destruction from a helicopter.

Other massive flooding events have driven residents and business owners to give up, including in areas struck last year by Hurricane Helene.

President Donald Trump said he would likely visit the flood zone on Friday.

AP photographers have captured the scale of the destruction, and one of Texas' largest rescue and recovery efforts.