AN INTERNATIONAL TAKE

CPAC Welcomes French Right-Wing Extremist Marion Marechal-Le Pen

Annual conservative conference has Marine Le Pen’s niece on its speakers’ list.

This year’s Conservative Political Action Conference boasts some big names and one distinctly international voice on their speakers list. Marion Marechal-Le Pen, niece of right-wing populist French politician Marine Le Pen, is set to speak on CPAC’s opening day, one hour after Vice President Mike Pence is slated to give a speech. Marine Le Pen, who is the president of France’s National Front political party, got 33.9 percent of the vote in the country’s 2017 election. The party supports policies like significantly decreasing immigration and putting “native French” above those who are not. Marechal-Le Pen is also of the National Front and became France’s youngest MP in modern history in 2012, at the age of 22. Last year, she announced that she was leaving politics for “personal and political reasons,” but said she was “not giving up the political fight forever.” Chairman of the American Conservative Union Matt Schlapp defended Le Pen on Twitter, tweeting that she was more conservative than Mitt Romney and she is “a classical liberal, a conservative.”