Marine Le Pen leader of the Front National in France. Popular slogans: "The National Front neither left nor right". "The voice of the people, the spirit of France".

Do not confuse her with "our" buffoon Jean-Marie Le Pen, her father, whom she ate for breakfast and spat out.

Educated at and graduated from the best law school in France [as was President François Hollande] Panthéon-Assas University and was a member of the bar in Paris and often represented [defence] illegal immigrants.

Marine Le Pen is the cool, calculating and intelligent face of French Nationalism, do not underestimate her appeal. She has adopted pretty much every populist position available. Working and middle class families in France also feel abandoned by the left, we have a "Socialist" president whose popularity is in the veritable toilet around 14% and possibly in single figures, deservedly so I might add.

Economically Le Pen is a protectionist and against free trade, she profoundly dislikes and distrusts the WTO and IMF, hates the Euro but supports the Bancor [as proposed by John Maynard Keynes]. She is against the privatisation of the Post office. She rails against the neo-liberal elite.

Le Pen proposes strict regulation of the Banks. She detests that small businesses pay 33% in tax whereas major corporations average about 8%, she proposes a flexible corporation tax base on profits and payment to shareholders.

Le Pen dislikes NATO and believes France should return to its historical position on NATO [Charles de Gaulle] and proposes closer ties with Russia in a Greater Europe for increased security. Not a fan of the US because of its association with Saudi Arabia and hence ties to religious extremism. She is against France's involvement in what she terms as neocolonial foreign wars and to prevent uncontrolled immigration she proposes development and the "decolonisation" [the mentality] of the countries of origin.

On agriculture le Pen detests the European Agricultural Policy and promotes the use of home grown products only, France happens to be a net exporter.

le Pen upholds the ideals of a secular France with its definitive separation of Church and State.

Le Pen defends Abortion Rights and State subsidies for abortion, but detests what she call the trivialisation of abortion and hence talks a little to much about family values and increasing the birthrate of the French.

Le Pen proposes France's withdrawal from the Schengen Area and the return of customs control on all borders, Sarkozy proposes the same.

She proposes the removal of immigrants that have legally obtained French nationality if they commit a serious crime back to their country of origin. Le Pen opposes any route whereby an illegal immigrant can obtain French nationality.

Le Pen often talks about Sharia law and the "Islamification" of France and any national subsidies towards the building of mosques.

Marine Le Pen has tried to hide the xenophobic and racist heart of her Party that you only get to hear if you attend their local meetings.

So you can see how clever Marine Le Pen has been in moving the authoritarian, holocaust denying, xenophobic and racist party of her father by sheer force of will into a warm fuzzy version of the same. You can see the populist appeal, French unemployment stands at just under 10% with youth unemployment at just below 25%.

As we keep saying

It is the economy stupid.
It is the economy stupid.
It is the economy stupid.

When the electorate feels ignored Austerity!™, anything is possible. Brexit!™. Trump!™.

The left [elite] has exactly the same problem here as elsewhere, they concentrated on what they believed to be the case rather than listening to the people. You just knew someone else would grab the populist ball and run with it, historically the extreme right in Europe have been good at that. We all know the end result of believing them.

In France we have a run off between the two leading candidates and the must obtain over 50% of the vote to win. It would not surprise me that Marine Le Pen gets into the final head to head, if you like polls here, I take them with a large pinch of salt and would add once in the run off, anything can happen.