"When Jean-Marie Le Pen was still the leader of France's National Front party, we spoke often, either at his villa in Paris or at my dacha in Moscow. Toward the end of his long career, he would tell me that the French nationalists had probably gone too far, particularly with their anti-gay, antiabortion, anti-immigrant and sometimes anti-Semitic positions. This ruined their relations with the press and alienated a large part of European society. Le Pen realized they had to move to something softer, and this has been the role of his daughter."
