Combative new star of the French right By Hugh Schofield

BBC News, Paris Published duration 6 July 2015

image copyright Getty Images image caption Florian Philippot has a high media profile in France.

Anyone in France with the most cursory interest in politics has been obliged to form an opinion on Florian Philippot.

At just 34, he has become the most visible face (after Marine Le Pen's) of the most visible party in the game.

Through last year's string of election triumphs (municipal, European, departmental) he was the Front National's permanent man-before-the-camera, and today at the smallest item of political news he is happy to react.

He has become an indispensible right-hand man to the party's leader (they text each other constantly throughout the interview).

And it is no exaggeration to say that he is utterly detested by her father, who blames him for his downfall.

Philippot is FN vice-president and an MEP. Some tip him to be prime minister, were Marine ever to make it to the top.

He is affable and neat, and intelligent and polite enough not to make his answers sound like he is articulating them for the nth time (though of course he is).

My first political memory is the Maastricht referendum of 1992," he says.

"I was only 11, but I made everyone in the family laugh when I said I was against the single currency because I didn't want (the French symbol) Marianne's head taken off the coins!"

'Not far right'

Thus at an early age was set a political path that led from traditional Gaullism through to the "sovereignist" movements of the early 2000s, and now to the "patriotic" protectionism of the Front National.

"I absolutely reject the term 'far-right'," he tells me.

"For me that smacks of democracy-denial, racial hierarchy, anti-parliamentarism: all that the Front National does NOT represent.

image copyright Reuters image caption Marine Le Pen and Philippot have a very close professional relationship

"The old left-right split went out with the Cold War. Now the big divide is between patriots like us, and the others - parties of left and right that no longer believe in the nation.

"I am a patriot - in the Gaullist tradition."

Loyalty to General de Gaulle is not the least surprising innovation that Philippot has brought to the party.

For many years, the FN was defined by its outright hostility to De Gaulle - because of his "sell-out" to the independence movement in Algeria.

But Philippot has a portrait of the general on his office wall, and last year led an FN delegation to pay homage at his tomb.

"In my family De Gaulle was always treated with enormous respect," he says.

"And of course it helped that we lived near Lille, where he was born. In the north of France there is a still a deep attachment to his memory."

Comfortable background

Born in 1981, Philippot is the child of teachers. The family was "solidly middle-class, not rich, not poor. We had holidays, but not many. We ate out, occasionally."

There was already plenty of immigration in this part of the country, and Philippot's father gave evening classes in French.

image copyright Reuters image caption Jean-Marie Le Pen detests Philippot

In the school where he taught in Tourcoing, a majority of pupils were Muslim.

"I asked my father recently whether back in the 1980s there had been the same problems as today about pork in canteens. He said, it wasn't even an issue. Pork was served and that was that.

"Back then the French Republican logiciel (mental software) was much stronger than today."

Philippot attended the elite schools HEC (for business) and ENA (for the state administration) - marking him out as a man of the establishment.

But his interest in politics was growing. He supported the right-wing "sovereignist' ticket headed by Charles Pasqua and Philippe Seguin in the 1999 European elections, and at the presidentials three years later backed the left-wing nationalist Jean-Pierre Chevenement.

"Jean-Marie Le Pen was not on my radar. I had nothing against him, but I just didn't take the Front National seriously. It looked to me like the party did not really want power," he says.

The emergence of Le Pen's daughter changed things. He observed her with admiration, and in 2009 they met.

"It was automatic, our mutual understanding. On the human level, politically, intellectually, we were on the same wavelength. We both could see what needed to be done."

Close relationship

And so began a relationship that has been fundamental in modern French politics: Marine Le Pen providing the strength, the family name, and the ambition; her lieutenant giving arguments, credibility and support.

image copyright Getty Images image caption President De Gaulle is a personal hero for Philippot

"We both could see that if we were to de-demonise the party, we had to talk about more than just immigration and security. We needed to have a global vision. Which we do now - a vision built on retaking control of national sovereignty."

On the economy that means a "concerted dissolution" of the euro, and protectionism to boost French jobs and businesses.

"How can we fight in a globalised world when we have competitors who control their budgets and monetary policy - and we do not?" he asks.

On immigration it means "tending towards zero".

Family unification will stop, and only people with priority skills allowed in.

Illegal immigrants will be expelled, and there will be a clampdown on asylum, which has become "totally divorced from its original purpose".

"To get back out borders, we leave Schengen - and without France Schengen collapses."

Transformed fortunes

No-one can deny the transformation of the FN's fortunes in the last five years. A party that was ostracised now takes part in the debate. But beyond a few town halls, power still eludes.

For Philippot, that is set to change.

"Marine will - I hope - run for the Nord-Pas de Calais in December's regional elections. She will win, and then be in control of a budget of billions of dollars.

image copyright Reuters image caption Philippot sees President Hollande as ultra-liberal

"She proves herself a capable leader there, and as we say in France, the mayonnaise sets. The alchemy starts to work."

Who would be her ideal opponent in the presidential run-off in 2017?

Logic suggests Francois Hollande. As an unpopular incumbent, he would embody the old discredited politics and many centre-right voters would rather choose her.

But according to Philippot: "Frankly we do not care. They are all the same: Valls, Hollande, Sarkozy, Juppe. Federalist, immigrationist, ultra-liberal."

At no point has Philippot's support been more crucial to Marine Le Pen than in the last three months - when the long-projected showdown with the FN's historic leader was dramatically acted out.

Jean-Marie was fired from his position as honorary president, because of what were deemed to be his constant verbal provocations.

If Marine was already minded to take on her father, there can be no doubt that she was steeled to the task by her lieutenant - who believes Jean-Marie is now a noxious curse.

Hate figure

In return, Philippot has become the supreme hate-figure for JMLP - the one to blame for leading his daughter into betrayal.

In a venomous recent interview, Jean-Marie said: "Just because you are a young [idiot] it doesn't mean you are always right."

And he made insinuations about Philippot's homosexuality - describing him and other gay men in the FN as "mignons": this a disparaging reference to the favourites who dominated the court of King Henri III in the 16th Century.

Today Philippot says that the attacks "leave me totally indifferent. Or rather they make me laugh, because he is becoming the worst caricature of his own self. What he has said about me as well as Marine is deeply insulting, but he dishonours only himself.

"For Marine, the episode has made her free. Her father used to create constant anxiety. He was destroying everything she built. It was unbearable for her, psychologically, to have this constant shadow pressing down on her. Now she is liberated."

Florian Philippot:

Born on 24 October 1981 in Croix. His parents were teachers

Graduate of one of France's elite business schools as well as its Ecole Nationale d'Administration, which has trained many French politicians

One of the five vice-presidents of the Front National

One of leader Marine Le Pen's most influential advisers

Threatened legal action for invasion of privacy after a French magazine published pictures of him with a male friend in 2014