In many ways, Marine Le Pen is her father’s daughter. In as much as she is endeavouring to steer France to the far right of centrist politics that already veer rightwards. Yet she has succeeded where the infamous Jean-Marie failed. In the first round of the presidential elections, Ms Le Pen secured 7.6 million votes (or 21.4 percent) — some 2.8 million more votes in the bag than the elder Le Pen enjoyed back in 2002, when he went head-to-head in a round two face-off with the then incumbent Jacques Chirac. It was a development that sent shockwaves through the mainstream political establishment. Today, Emmanuel Macron — leader of En Marche! (On the move) secured 24 percent of the vote. This is his first foray into the world of electioneering. Yet he is widely tipped to go all the way to the Elysee Palace on May 7. Yet for all this, there is likely nothing to get too excited about just now. Meaning that even if Macron does win the presidency it should not automatically be seen as a resounding defeat of the anti-immigration policies of Ms Le Pen — but rather as a repudiation of her reimagined relationship with Brussels. She has famously said that she is not interested in being Angela Merkel’s vice chancellor. Given that the latter represented the bloc’s lone compassionate voice when admitting refugees fleeing NATO bombing campaigns — it seems that Ms Le Pen has yet to develop a keen sense of the ironic. Her ultimate vision is for France to have its own referendum on EU membership. According to polls, 7 out of 10 voters oppose any ‘rupture’ with the Union. Yet Macron has been the only candidate to contest on a pro-European platform. Which may go some way to explaining how the two main parties — the Republicans and the Socialists, who between them have ruled France nearly 60 years — have been wiped out of this electoral race. There is, of course, another key player: ISIS. According to political pundits, the terror group is seeking to manipulate the outcome of the elections by stepping up its spate of attacks on the French homeland; in much in the same way that the Pakistani Taliban did in 2013. But here, analysts suggest that ISIS is deliberately trying to ensure a knee-jerk anti-Muslim reaction that would see a Le Pen victory. Reversing the spin on the Bush doctrine of taking the battlefield directly to the ‘enemy’. Yet whatever the outcome next month, the threat of ‘cohabitation’ looms large, whereby parliament is under control of a different party. Given that Macron’s party has no MPs to its name and Le Pen’s Front National (National Front) has just two — France could well see return to de facto rule by the two traditional parties. And if that happens, the old adage will never have rung more true: the more it changes, the more it’s the same. *