Le Pen signs off with an anti-Semitic slur - Telegraph.co.uk

Ségolène Royal, the defeated Socialist candidate in the 2007 presidential elections, warned yesterday that Marine Le Pen had "eliminated all her father's caricatures. She is a more credible candidate, more dangerous than her father in her force of conviction", she warned. In fact, she went on, she had "the same project, the same politics".

Miss Le Pen's victory marks the start of her campaign to run for French president in 2012, in which the latest polls credit her with coming third with between 16.5 and 18 per cent of the vote.

She has promised to win over the mainstream Right-wing electorate and "dry up" support for President Nicolas Sarkozy's UMP party via themes such as insecurity, immigration and the "Islamisation" of France. A survey last week suggested 32 per cent of UMP supporters are sympathetic to the FN's ideas - a 10 per cent jump in one year. A growing minority of UMP supporters advocate ad hoc electoral alliances with the FN.

To huge applause after the outcome, she said: "We are going to make the FN a great popular force. To conquer new voters? Yes. To make alliances with the UMP? Non." Mr Gollnisch, 60, instantly sought to allay fears of a split between hard-liners who rallied to his cause and Miss Le Pen's perceived "softer" line. Describing his rival as the "party's natural candidate for 2012", he nevertheless declined her offer of becoming the FN's first vice president and party number two.

In his combative farewell speech, Mr Le Pen, 82, insisted that "unceasing immigration" posed a threat to France.

"All my comments were distorted from their true meaning... because I refused to submit to the dictatorship of the thought police," he told cheering supporters. His daughter, he said, had the "necessary qualities" to run the party.

While some analysts are describing Miss Le Pen as a potentially dangerous threat to President Sarkozy, Pascal Perrineau, head of the Cevipof political studies centre, was more cautious. "In the history of French politics, there have been loads of other popular political personalities who haven't found this popularity in the ballot box," he said.