ALMOST 13 years have passed since the then leader of the Front National (FN), Jean-Marie Le Pen, shocked the world by reaching the run-off in the presidential election of 2002. The far-right party, now led by his daughter, Marine, came first in last year’s European elections. It is expected to be top again in the first round of local elections on March 22nd, with perhaps 30% of the vote. Back in 2002 Le Pen père was so widely loathed that the left and the right rallied around Jacques Chirac, who won the run-off easily. Today, by contrast, there is no such united front. Instead, mainstream politicians openly speculate about Ms Le Pen reaching the second round in the 2017 presidential election—and, just conceivably, winning it.

Ms Le Pen is a more appealing political leader than her father. To detoxify the FN’s brand she has shed much of the neo-fascism, racism and anti-Semitism it once embodied. She is working hard to strengthen the party’s foundations, so that it is acquiring not only more voters but also more members and greater political experience. The party has 1,500 councillors and two deputies in the National Assembly. The transformation of the FN’s image is striking: even among young people, to be a supporter is no longer taboo. Indeed, voting FN has become semi-respectable (see article).

The Marine blues

That is deeply worrying. For all the softening of its image, the FN remains an extremist party. It is fiercely anti-immigrant. The overt anti-Semitism has been toned down, but its xenophobia continues under the theme of warnings against Islamism. That is one reason why the FN continued to gain ground after the Charlie Hebdo murders in January.

The party’s wrong-headed economic policies still smack of its far-right origins. It is not just anti-immigrant but anti-globalisation. It opposes free trade and free markets, displaying a strong protectionist streak. Ms Le Pen rails against France’s membership of the euro and is hostile to the free movement of goods, services, capital and labour that lie at the heart of the European single market. She is anti-American and an admirer of Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, backing his annexation of Crimea and his actions in Ukraine. It is no coincidence that the FN has taken a big loan from a Kremlin-linked bank.

It is possible that Ms Le Pen intends to carry her party to the conservative mainstream. But it would be rash to bank on that. Rather than speculating about the odds of her reaching the Elysée, France’s mainstream politicians need to work far harder to head off Ms Le Pen and her party.