Le Pen said late on Monday she was taking "a leave of absence" from leading the FN to focus on campaigning, in a move that appeared to be a mere formality that changes nothing in her campaign platform.
He reached the second round of the presidential election in 2002, but was crushed in the runoff by Jacques Chirac.
Le Pen has also tried to brand herself as a leader of her country rather than just her party in a bid to widen her appeal.
However, it's 88-year-old founder, Jean-Marie Le Pen, criticised his daughter and said he would have campaigned differently.
He still supports her candidacy in the presidential runoff. The entire political establishment and every poll had forewarned and foretold of Le Pen's first-round breakthrough.
Far-right French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has announced that she is stepping aside as leader of her National Front (FN) party.
The election is widely seen as a litmus test for the populist wave that previous year prompted Britain to vote to leave the European Union and US voters to elect Donald Trump president.
Marine Le Pen's backers are far less inhibited.
This included expelling her father from the party in August 2015 after he made controversial comments about the Holocaust - describing it as a "detail of history" - and defended Philippe Pétain, the leader of France's Nazi collaborationist Vichy regime in the 1940s.
She said the French government must promote meat from France. "If I'd been in her place I would have had a Trump-like campaign, a more open one, very aggressive against those responsible for the decadence of our country, whether left or right", Jean-Marie Le Pen told RTL radio.
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Surveys pointing to a clear Macron victory soothed investors who have been unnerved by Le Pen's pledges to ditch the euro, print money and possibly quit the EU.
"Everyone knows what side Emmanuel Macron is on - he is on the side of the corporations", Le Pen said.
Fifteen years ago, Jean-Marie Le Pen's qualification to the runoff provoked massive street protests - voters' way of making amends for not turning out in sufficient numbers to keep him out in round one.
Protesters angry over the results burned cars, danced around bonfires and dodged riot police overnight in Paris.
A one-on-one against an ex-banker backed by politicians of all stripes wanting to form a dam against the FN gives Le Pen the flawless opportunity to boost her anti-establishment appeal, even if pollsters say that is not enough for her to win.
Voters rejected the two mainstream parties that have alternated power for decades in favour of Le Pen and the untested Macron, who has never held elected office and who founded his own political movement just a year ago. Those groups largely wouldn't have been seen dead voting for her father.
Le Pen won 21.3 percent of the votes on Sunday, behind Macron's 24.01 percent, and her campaign immediately sent an email to supporters urging them to spread social-media tailored messages on the "real Macron". Le Pen is their whip to sanction the French and European Union political establishment - even among some voters who don't otherwise share her politics. (Onwards!) party structure as a "movement" transcending the left-right divide.
But polls suggest Le Pen won't suffer a beating as severe as that endured by her father.
She told France 2 that France was approaching a "decisive moment".
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