Marine Le Pen backtracks on web pornography censorship

National Front candidate Marine Le Pen (above) isn’t the kind of politician who shies away from polemics. She is at the head of one of France’s more controversial political parties, which despite its “dediabolization” strategy has had a hard time portraying itself as a normal, right-wing movement. So it might come as a surprise for many that Marine Le Pen backtracked so quickly this week on the censorship of pornography on the web.

In an interview with the youth branch of extreme-right catholic group Intitut Civitas, Le Pen made the following statement through her culture advisor, Françoise Buy Rebaud (emphasis mine):

Q: How do you plan to unambiguously fight against pornography on television and on the Internet?

A: Censorship, even if the word displeases; this concerns youth protection; indeed how can you be surprised by the multiplication of sexual offenses and crimes, when the media put it on display in what one could call an inciting way.

The interview contained many other traditionally conservative statements, such as the opposition to same-sex marriage. But this particular answer was immediately picked up by the press because Le Pen has strived to portray herself as a staunch defender of Internet freedom. Here is an extract of her platform on culture (emphasis mine):

Internet – Communication is not only for press groups, it concerns all French people, notably through audiovisual media on the Internet (blogs, forums, etc.). Their freedom of expression must be guaranteed and reinforced in this field. A global license will be instated for privates exchanges on the Internet, which much remain free. The freedom of Internet will be firmly defended against all attempts (HADOPI, LOPPSI 2, ACTA Treaty) aiming for various reasons to restrain it.

Le Pen’s position on Internet freedom is a long standing one, to the point where digital-focused news site Numerama had to concede that her platform (as presented in the video below) was more coherent and favorable to Internet freedom than most candidates.

But this libertarian approach to the Internet invariably clashed with the goals of conservative groups like the Institut Civitas, which is infamous for protesting against any cultural event it deems blasphemous. So when the news broke that Le Pen was apparently flip-flopping on her pledge to keep the web free, the question was which group – conservative Catholics or web activists – she would side with. She answered on Twitter that same day:

Marine Le Pen veut censurer Internet:
Dans une interview à une association ultra-catholique, Marine Le Pen fai... http://t.co/Km9OV3Kl

— Numerama (@Numerama) March 13, 2012

@numerama je suis contre la #censure sur Internet ; mon propos concernait les logiciels de contrôle parental trop peu efficaces. MLP

— Marine Le Pen (@MLP_officiel) March 13, 2012

(I am against censorship on the Internet, I was talking about inefficient parental control software).

Albeit weak – the original interview makes no mention whatsoever of parental control software – this line of defense showed Le Pen was sticking to her original platform. My analysis is that she is sufficiently conservative on many other issues for the extreme-right electorate to stick with her, but that the only position the web-savvy crowd might cling to in order to vote for her is the Internet freedom stance. Overall, this about-face shows the difficulties of normalizing a party that was founded on  staunch extreme-right positions: the old conservative crowd always clashes with the new one.