Marine Le Pen Receiving Support From The Gay Community In French Election

French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen is supposedly more popular with gay voters than those who are heterosexual. Many of her key advisers are also gay.

Le Pen, 48, is the leader of the populist, anti-establishment, National Front, a party the media describes as far-right, although Le Pen’s economic platform has some similarities to those espoused by Bernie Sanders.

According to Politico.eu, Le Pen has framed her economic policies such as “parallel currencies, a renegotiation of France’s EU membership and a potential referendum on the euro — in a way that resonates with citizen’s concerns, promising ‘intelligent protectionism’ against the uncontrollable forces of globalization.”

If elected, Le Pen promises the French electorate a Frexit referendum on staying or leaving the European Union. The National Front also wants to abolish gay marriage and replace it with robust civil union law, but that apparently hasn’t discouraged its gay supporters.

According to AP, gay voters are moving in Le Pen’s direction with the first round of the presidential election just two weeks away.

“Motivated in part by the deadly Islamic extremist attacks at home and at a Florida gay nightclub, a growing bloc of traditionally left-leaning gay voters has embraced far-right French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, leader of the once-fringe National Front party. While nobody knows how far Le Pen’s supporters will carry her in the April 23-May 7 vote, several years of polls have shown the National Front is now more popular with the LGBT voters who make up 6.5 percent of the French electorate than it is with straight voters. That the constituency once reviled by the party is buoying it suggests populism has taken root in France more deeply than previously thought.”

There have also been reports that Le Pen’s coalition includes younger voters. Citing recent polls, NPR indicated that 40 percent of the 18-24 cohort is supporting her.

Based on current data, Le Pen is expected to finish first or second in the first round of the voting and then challenge the other top contender, most likely center-left, establishment, and pro-EU candidate Emmanuel Macron, in the runoff election. According to pollsters, Macron will prevail on May 7, but history has shown that pollsters also predicted a Hillary Clinton win and a Brexit loss. One-third of French voters are supposedly still in the undecided column, so the situation is fluid.

French physicist Serge Galam, who predicted a Trump victory, claims that a Le Pen presidency is very likely because of her strong base of support versus lukewarm feelings that exist for the other potential runoff candidates.

“In other words, the National Front leader could benefit because a substantial number of people who say they will vote for her rival may not actually go to the polls,” Poltico.eu separately reported.

“Le Pen, who wants to curb immigration, ditch the euro, and hold a referendum on European Union membership, was buoyed by Trump’s victory and the British vote to leave the European Union last year, hoping a similar groundswell against what she calls ‘unchecked globalization (and) destructive ultra-liberalism’ would propel her to victory,” Reuters explained.

In what will also be familiar to American voters from the 2016 election, the French political and media establishment is vocally anti-Le Pen. It another similarity, some artists in the entertainment industry claim that they will leave France if Le Pen wins.

If elected, Marine Le Pen would be the first woman in France to hold that office.

Marine Le Pen got into some hot water today for claiming that France should not be held responsible for the “1942 ‘Vel d’Hiv’ roundup in which more than 13,000 Jews were arrested to be deported to Nazi concentration camps,” Bloomberg Politcs reported.

What Le Pen was apparently trying to say is that the French government doing the bidding of their Nazi puppet matters bears responsibility for the atrocity as distinguished from the French citizenry. Le Pen clarified her remarks later today when she declared that “I consider that France and the Republic were based in London during the (Nazi) occupation…The Vichy regime was not France,” and illegal, the Jerusalem Post noted.

“Going there” in the first place was probably a big mistake for the presidential candidate, and may or may not have ramifications on election day, because the National Front has a legacy of anti-Semitism from its founder, Jean-Marie Le Pen, a Holocaust denier. Marine Le Pen kicked her father out of the National Front in August, 2015, as part of an ongoing rebranding and image softening for the party.

Generally supportive of President Trump, Marine Le Pen criticized the Thursday night missile strike on the Syrian air base as inconsistent with his promise to end the practice of the U.S. as the world’s policeman.

“She said she didn’t want a repeat of events in Iraq and Libya where she said Western intervention had ‘brought chaos and ended up strengthening… terrorist organizations,'” Reuters added. Le Pen also suggested that an independent investigation into who was responsible for the gas attack should have come first.

In August, 2014, Brigitte Bardot, the international sex symbol from the 1950s and 60s, likened Marine Le Pen to a 21st Century version of Joan of Arc.

[Featured Image by Thibault Camus/AP Images]