Fifteen years ago, few thought that Jean-Marie Le Pen stood any chance of entering the second round of the French presidential election. It was widely believed that he would place third behind two centrists: incumbent Jacques Chirac and Socialist challenger Lionel Jospin. Experts were shocked when the elder Le Pen outperformed expectations and ended up with 16.86 percent of the vote, just ahead of Jospin's 16.18 percent and not so far off from Chirac's 19.88 percent.

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It's notable that there was little of this surprise in 2017. Marine Le Pen's strong first-round performance had been widely predicted. No one was shocked that she won a greater share of the vote than her father had — 21.30 percent to eventual winner Macron's 24.01 percent — or that the younger Le Pen improved upon her father's performance in most areas of the country, including in National Front strongholds in the south and the northeast.

The contrasts continued in the second round of voting. In 2002, Jean-Marie Le Pen's success in the first round of voting had shocked many in France, leading to considerable protests. Politicians of all stripes joined to form a “Republican Front” that would vote for Chirac in the second round. Le Pen lost in a landslide, winning only 17.8 percent of the vote while Chirac entered office with 82.2 percent.

Although there was an attempt this time around, as well, to unite against Marine Le Pen, many voters struggled to embrace Macron, the “radical centrist” and former investment banker. Notably, popular leftist Jean-Luc Mélenchon declined to support him. In the end, however, Macron won convincingly, his vote share not far from what most polls had predicted.

In the face of this defeat, many National Front supporters may already be looking on the bright side. Since Marine Le Pen took over the party in 2011, she has dramatically improved upon the electoral successes of her father in a number of areas — most notably boosting the National Front's regional and European representation. Now she can add her gains in the presidential election to the list.

What explains these gains? Partly, its tactics. When she took over the National Front, Marine Le Pen said she wanted to “de-demonize” the party. Under her father, the party had been tarred by its association with neo-fascist groups — a situation made worse by Jean-Marie Le Pen's denial of the Holocaust and his anti-Semitic statements. Marine Le Pen sought to play down these links, even reaching out to Jewish parties and expelling her father from the National Front, while adopting a less bombastic and more measured approach in public appearances.

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The plan only partly worked. The National Front faced a grim number of Holocaust-denial scandals in this campaign, as well as fresh ones over its links to Russia and allegations of corruption. Notably, Marine Le Pen was beaten at the polls by a candidate who has taken pains to reexamine France's more painful historical moments, most notably colonization.

But even if the “de-demonization” is only semi-complete, shifting political sands in Europe have placed Marine Le Pen at the center of a movement that can trace many of its roots back to her father. In fact, the biggest threat to Marine Le Pen is the criticism from her own party members (including her father), who say she should have been better able to capitalize on this global swell of populism.

For now, many of those following in the footsteps of Jean-Marie Le Pen, such as Britain's Nigel Farage or the Netherlands's Geert Wilders, say they expect Marine Le Pen to eventually win. They have one scrap of data in their favor: It took Jean-Marie Le Pen three presidential elections, not to mention decades of party leadership, to become a real contender. It has taken Marine Le Pen just two.