French politician Marine Le Pen has announced that she does not plan to return to the post of head of her right-wing National Rally (Rassemblement Nationale) party, instead she will head a faction in the National Assembly (Parliament), Francebleu reported.

“I will not take over the leadership of the RN. I will focus on the presidency of this very large group,” Le Pen said.

According to the politician, she was "surprised" by the number of seats won by the National Rally in the elections (a record 89).

“We hoped to have a group and in our greatest hopes we wanted to have 60 deputies. It is true that we were pleasantly surprised by the mobilisation of our compatriots and by this wish that immigration, that insecurity, that the fight against Islamism does not disappear from the National Assembly,” she said.

Meanwhile, Le Pen left her position as leader of the National Rally party temporarily back in September 2021 to prepare for the presidential election, which she lost to Emmanuel Macron in April 2022.