By Stacy Meichtry 

PARIS--The architect of Marine Le Pen's anti-euro stance has quit National Front.

Florian Philippot, the party's No. 2 official who championed its embrace of economic nationalism in this year's presidential election, said he had left the party Thursday after Ms. Le Pen stripped him of his role as vice president of strategy and communications.

"I was told I was vice president of nothing. I don't like being ridiculed, nor do I like having nothing to do, so you bet I quit the party," Mr. Philippot said on French TV.

The move paves the way for National Front to make a full-throated return to identity politics, drawing on its anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim base, while jettisoning the broader message of economic "sovereignty" that Mr. Philippot championed.

National Front, once considered an imminent threat to France's political establishment, is in upheaval. Party members have been pushing Ms. Le Pen to abandon her opposition to the euro, which they blame for her election defeat as well as the party's disappointing performance in parliamentary races a month later.

The National Front leader lost by a surprisingly wide margin to upstart Emmanuel Macron, who ran on a staunch pro-European Union platform diametrically opposed to Ms. Le Pen's plan to pull France from the economic bloc and its common currency, the euro.

Ms. Le Pen's opposition to the euro took shape after she recruited Mr. Philippot as her right-hand man in the run-up to the 2012 elections.

Mr. Philippot, a graduate of France's elite Ecole Nationale d'Administration who is openly gay, was initially an outlier in National Front's rowdy right-wing politics. But Mr. Philippot's plan to rebrand National Front as a party of economic nationalism--and bury its xenophobic past--appealed to Ms. Le Pen who had recently succeeded her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, as the group's leader.

Ms. Le Pen's elevation of Mr. Philippot broadened her appeal, especially with left-wing voters in France's hollowed-out industrial areas, allowing her party to notch key victories in local and European Parliament elections. But Mr. Philippot's rise also led to Ms. Le Pen's estrangement from her father and his followers.

In January, Ms. Le Pen unveiled a plan to remove France from the euro. The move helped turn the presidential election into a referendum on the euro as Mr. Macron rushed to the currency's defense, figuratively wrapping himself in the EU's blue and gold-starred flag.

Ms. Le Pen's loss left many party members clamoring for Mr. Philippot's departure. Mr. Philippot responded by founding Les Patriotes, a group of National Front members who support his agenda.

Earlier this month, Mr. Philippot was photographed sitting down to a meal of couscous--a popular Arab dish--prompting National Front supporters to hound him on Twitter, unleashing the hashtag #couscousgate.

The final straw came during a meeting of party leaders this week as Ms. Le Pen demanded Mr. Philippot put an end to his "conflict of interest" as head of Les Patriotes. Mr. Philippot's refusal, she said, forced her to take away his brief as strategic chief.

Write to Stacy Meichtry at stacy.meichtry@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 21, 2017 09:14 ET (13:14 GMT)

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