Rabat - Dalila Fortin, born to a Moroccan mother and French father, has recently traveled to Morocco to drum up support for the far-right National Front ahead of the second round of France's presidential election. In an interview with huffpostmaghreb.com she revealed her position.
Rabat – Dalila Fortin, born to a Moroccan mother and French father, has recently traveled to Morocco to drum up support for the far-right National Front ahead of the second round of France’s presidential election. In an interview with huffpostmaghreb.com she revealed her position.
Marine Le Pen, the National Front party leader has surfaced as one of the two front-runners in the France elections, proving that the kind of extremist rhetoric that placed Donald Trump in the White House and took Britain out of the European Union could take power in France as well.
Support for the National Front is stronger among men, the less educated, and Catholics. In 2016, support stood at 28% among men, 26% among those with no college degree and 27% among Roman Catholics, according to a survey by Pew Research Center survey.
It is then surprising that an educated French-Moroccan woman who always “wanted to bring something to the world” would surface as a public advocate for the National Front.After living in Asia for a year, 32 year-old Dalila Fortin joined the the far-right party, realizing that “the values of the National Front respect our French principles and those of others.”Fortin contrasts this with the leader of the new centrist political movement En Marche, Emmanuel Macron, who has promised pro-immigration policies, like examining asylum applications within six months and making French nationality accessible for those skilled in the French language.
Fortin believes that the left is only “giving an appearance about being open about immigration. The left also [says it] wants to save the world! [The] reality is that goodwill has brought disorder in France.”
Marine Le Pen, who throughout her campaign has repeated her plans to abolish the right to French nationality for people born in France to foreign parents, to ban illegal immigrants from regularizing their condition in France, and to limit foreigners’ access to health care, which according to Fortin is “the only possible alternative” to resolve “disorder” in France.
“I was convinced that Marine Le Pen would be qualified in the second round of the presidential election. For me, she has strong chances of winning,” she explained.
Make Africa Great Again?
Born to a French father and a Moroccan mother, Fotrin has never lived in Morocco nor in Africa, though she says it is “a part of my identity that I miss.” She is currently traveling through Morocco to meet voters and encourage them to vote for Marine Le Pen.
“I am here to discover African culture and to establish a link with the French living in Africa,” says Fortin.
She assures that Marine Le Pen wants “goodness” for Africa. “People do not know this because of the bad image of the party, but Marine Le Pen aims to assist in the development aid in Africa, as 0.7% of GDP will go to education and agriculture in African countries.”
“I do not know yet how long I will stay here,” she says. “I have to go to Senegal and I may go to Tunisia and Algeria.”
But she knows that this will not be an easy victory, especially in Morocco. The National Front collected only 4% of the votes in the kingdom. “It’s a difficult region to win, but I believe in it.”
Le Pen: “I Will Protect You” from Immigration and “Savage Globalization”
As for immigration policy, Fortin is as firm as Le Pen. “I have immigrants in my family, and I am familiar with immigration. I can assure you that those who arrive in France work odd jobs so that they can send money to their families to their country because they did not succeed there. “
Fortin claimed that Le Pen is “not against migration.” Instead, she explained, Le Pen “just wants to put in place a cultural exchange that is done in a rational way. If the number of foreigners exceeds that of the French, there will be no more French values!”
She further claimed that migration draws French wages down and does not allow the emancipation of foreigners, while explaining that “the National Front is not racist. It is the interpretation that made of it such.” “If we remove the image of racism that people have stuck to the National Front, everyone [would] agree with its program,” she added.
