The far-right in France was considered a political pariah for decades, but now she finally has a chance to form a government after the two rounds of parliamentary elections, which start on Saturday and will end on July 7.
The following are some key moments in the history of the movement in which the Le Pen family has played a dominant role for more than half a century.
1972
Former soldier Jean-Marie Le Pen founded the fringe far-right party National Front, whose membership includes mostly veterans of the Algerian war and French collaborators from the Vichy regime.
1974
Le Pen participated in the presidential election, but won less than 1% of the vote. Two years later, a bomb attack was carried out against his residence in Paris, but the perpetrator has not been revealed to this day.
1981
Le Pen failed to secure enough support to run in the presidential election, which was won by left-wing politician François Mitterrand. In the following years, Le Pen gradually attracted new supporters.
1986
"The National Front" wins his first seats in parliament.
1987
Le Pen makes contemptuous remarks about homosexuals infected with AIDS. Throughout his life, he incited hatred with racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic slurs, which often got him into trouble with the justice system. In this way, however, Le Pen gains support among a part of the electorate.
1988
Le Pen won 14.4% of the votes in the presidential election. The following year the "National Front" receives the support of more than 10% of voters in the vote for the European Parliament. In addition, the party began to focus on Islam and Muslim immigrants, identifying them as one of the main political issues to deal with.
1995
"The National Front" won three town halls in the south of France - the cities of Toulon, Orange and Marignan, underscoring the growing electoral support for the far-right party.
2002
Le Pen ran for president and won 16.86% of the vote, enough to advance to a second round against Jacques Chirac. His strong performance sent shockwaves across France and many people were disgusted that such a far-right party could perform so well. Politicians from the left and the right are uniting to prevent Le Pen from winning the second round of the election. In the runoff, Chirac was elected with 80% of the voters' votes.
2008
Le Pen receives a three-month suspended sentence and a €10,000 fine for saying that the Nazi occupation of France was not "particularly inhumane".
2011
Jean-Marie Le Pen's daughter, Marine Le Pen, has been elected as the new leader of the "National Front" after a period in which the party scored poorly in opinion polls and had increasing financial problems.
2012
Marine Le Pen ran for president for the first time, but was not elected.
2014
"The National Front" makes a breakthrough in the local elections, winning 11 town halls and receiving the most votes in the European Parliament vote.
2015
Jean-Marie Le Pen's party activity has been suspended after he called the Holocaust a "detail" from World War II. Later that year, his daughter officially expelled him from the "National Front".
2017
Marine Le Pen ran for president again, but lost the election to Emmanuel Macron. She began making increasing efforts to make the party more attractive to a wider range of voters and tried to distance herself from its racist and anti-Semitic past. Marine Le Pen gives her MPs a stronger professional sheen by sending them to media training. In addition, the party began to be active in social networks. A year later "National Front" has been renamed the "National Assembly".
2022
Jordan Bardella, a 28-year-old protégé of Marine Le Pen, has been elected as the new president of the "National Assembly".
June 2024
Bardella heads the campaign of the "National Assembly" in the European Parliament vote and defeat Macron's party, prompting the president to call early parliamentary elections.
Bardella becomes a candidate for Prime Minister of the "National Assembly".
Translation from English: Nikolay Velev, BTA