|
 Le Pen, the FN leader, has softened the party's tone in hopes
of luring center-right voters to her run in next year's
presidential election, riding disenchantment with immigration
and the European Union.
But Riss, a cartoonist with satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo who
co-produced the new comic, says first-time voters may not grasp
what he regards as the FN's core extremism. That's where "The
Dark Side of Marine le Pen" comes in.
"Time is passing and a new generation of voter is coming
through. You realize that there is a young set of voters who
aren't very demanding ideologically and who sometimes don't even
know the history of the National Front. So the book is a way of
reminding people what this party really is, what it still is.
"Is she really so opposed to the traditional extremist
ideologies of her party? I sometimes doubt it," Riss said.
A National Front spokesman said he doubted Le Pen had read the
comic book. "It's of no interest to us."
The caricature on the comic's front cover shows Le Pen in a
billowing white dress standing over a ventilation cover and with
a cigarette dangling from her mouth, parodying the iconic
Marilyn Monroe image.
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"She's not a monster from morning until night, but she is worrying,"
said Riss's co-creator Richard Malka, a lawyer and scriptwriter.
"And if you demonize her, people won't listen to you. We want to
show who she really is, with her dark side and her light side."
Marine Le Pen may well wake up on May 7 to contest the second-round
run-off vote. But she will almost certainly lose, to whichever
mainstream candidate - Republicain or Socialist - she faces, opinion
polls indicate.
(Reporting by Johnny Cotton and Noemie Olive; Writing by Richard
Lough; Editing by Ingrid Melander and Mark Heinrich)
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