Marine Le Pen Prepares for a “Frexit”

On Thursday evening, Marine Le Pen, the head of France’s far-right National Front, gathered with Party leaders at a fish-and-chips restaurant in the Sixth Arrondissement of Paris, in a kitschy salute to what they believed would be a continuance of their shared destiny with the British. Around 1 A.M., when some of the group was still out revelling, the polls began to suggest the real possibility of a Brexit. The Party leaders scrambled to assemble a response. “The British people have given not only to Europeans but to people around the entire world a shattering lesson in democracy,” Le Pen, surprised but triumphant, told reporters the next morning. “A new Europe will emerge,” she said. “For all patriots, for anyone who loves liberty, today is a day of joy. It is not that Europe is dead but that the European Union is teetering, and the nations are being reborn.”