strategy and a pursuit of democratic respectability,"3 as Alistair Cole again explains.
So, for electoral success Le Pen has guided the Front to a more unorthodox, democratic .
based right-wing party. Image is obviously important to Le Pen who, in 1981, lost his.
intrinsic black eye-patch that he constantly wore previously. Now Le Pen dresses in the.
smartest of suits and is somewhat a more respectable character to look at. And respectable is .
what he aims for his party to be in regards to French politics - a respectable extreme right-.
wing party, if there is such a thing .
Le Pen has obviously succeeded somehow in changing the appearance of right-wing .
extremism in France as the election results show: In 1978 the Front gained a rather .
unspectacular 0.4% of the vote, and in the 1981 presidential elections Le Pen failed to gather.
the 500 signatures that is required for a candidate to stand. Yet the Front's first real .
breakthrough was in the 1983 municipal and by-elections were the Front achieved .
commendable performances. Since then the party has gone from strength-to-strength, as.
Gilles Ivaldi tells us:.
"While electorally irrelevant throughout the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s Le Pen's .
party has enjoyed high levels of electoral support over the last decade."4.
From 1984 onwards, the Front now enjoyed an average of 10 to 15% of votes in various .
elections. The Front had it's first national breakthrough in the 1984 European elections were .
it polled 10.95% of the vote. This was indeed a proud moment for Le Pen and the Front as .
Alistair Cole tells us that:.
"This performance was better than any previous far-right showing since the beginning of .
the Fifth Republic."5.
In the 1998 Presidential elections, Le Pen (whom seven years earlier failed to even stand) .
managed to poll 14.4% at the first round. Between 1988 and the end of the Nineties, the FN.
and Le Pen have polled an average of 15% in all types of elections.
