Le Pen eyes 2027 win with image makeover

Far right leader seeks to hide National Rally's racist image and reposition the party opposite Macron's centrists

- Angelique Chrisafis PARIS

At the French national assembly, Thomas Ménagé straightened the smart suit and tie that the far-right leader Marine Le Pen insists her parliamentarians wear to prove they are serious and respectable.

"We're a new generation," said the 31-year-old who used to work as a middle-manager in a property firm. "We've shown we work hard in parliament and the aim now is to prove we're capable of governing the country when Marine Le Pen becomes president in 2027."

Le Pen's far-right National Rally continues to send shockwaves through French politics as the biggest single opposition party in parliament, pitching itself as a counterweight to the centrist grouping of president Emmanuel Macron.

Le Pen's strategy is to use the presence of 89 far-right lawmakers in parliament as a crucial step in her long-running drive to sanitise her party's image and move it away from the jackbooted antisemitic imagery of the past. She is seeking to counter criticisms of party racism and xenophobia, ahead of a potential fourth attempt at the presidency in four years' time.