Marine Le Pen

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Marine Le Pen (born Marion Anne Perrine Le Pen, on August 5, 1968 at Neuilly-sur-Seine) is a French National Front (FN) politician; a lawyer by profession, she is mainly known for being Jean-Marie Le Pen's daughter.

[edit] Life and career

A mother of three from her first marriage, she was divorced and married Éric Iorio, an important member of her party. Le Pen ran in the 2004 French regional elections in the Île-de-France région. She has been one of eight vice presidents of the FN since April 2003.

Marine Le Pen is generally considered to represent a newer, softer tendency in the FN party.

Since she joined the FN party, she has advocated tolerance for abortion and homosexuality, which has notably angered some of the more traditional Catholic voters, while her increased presence in the FN has increased votes from France's Jewish population because of her comments about anti-Semitism being unacceptable in modern French society while continuing the FN opposition to Arab (who are mostly North African) immigration, which polls have shown a good portion of the Jewish community support.^{[citation needed]} Approximately 5% of French Jews vote for FN.

Since 2002 she has been the president of Generations Le Pen, an organization close to the FN, which aims "to promote the thought and works of Jean-Marie Le Pen" among youth. She was elected to the European Parliament in the 2004 elections and now sits in the Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty Group in the Parliament.

She has strong support of the media compared to her father because of her innate ability to socialise with both right and left, and in 2006 Jean-Marie Le Pen turned over to her the management of the presidential campaign.

Rumours have since been circulating that she may take over as head of the party depending on how well she does in this new role, and in a recent effort to gain more media appeal, she has lost 9kg and is now wearing fashionable designer clothing which the media has commented gives her new look a modern "with-it" image in the eyes of the public.