“My grandparents are afraid of Le Pen. They say she’s extreme, and that if she’s elected, we might have a war. I say maybe that’s a good thing.”

“France’s problem is that it’s too generous,” he said after Le Pen had sent her faithful off with an emphatic rendition of “La Marseillaise,” the French national anthem. “We give to the people who are coming into the country, but not to the French.”

His arms swathed in elaborate tattoos, Vergnaud said he’s not normally the type to attend political rallies. But he and four friends, all in their 20s, had driven a half-hour from their own small town because they see Le Pen as the last hope for a country at risk of collapse.

The problems are everywhere Vergnaud looks: The companies that are leaving. The farms that are failing. The people who are dying in mass-casualty terrorist attacks. The mosque that’s gone up in his town, right next to the church.

“I live near the Muslims. They don’t work. They just take what they’re given by the government,” he said.

But they’re also taking French jobs, he argued minutes later. “I work mostly with foreigners — people from Turkey,” he said.

Among the five friends, there was no doubt that Le Pen is their savior — the only one who would bother coming to their picturesque but decaying slice of countryside, the only one willing to fight back against the immigrants who they say are jeopardizing France’s future — and their own.

The old folks may not understand. But to the young, it was all very clear.

“My grandparents are afraid of Le Pen. They say she’s extreme, and that if she’s elected, we might have a war,” said Manon Coudray, a 23-year-old secretary. “I say maybe that’s a good thing.”