Hollande's administration has dismissed Le Pen's (pictured) call, but the National Front leader is more popular in opinion polls

Crisis meetings are being held by Francois Hollande after popular far-right leader Marine Le Pen called for a referendum on France's EU membership.

France and the EU are now trying to keep the union together after Britain voted to leave on Friday.

Hollande's administration has dismissed Le Pen's call, but the National Front leader is more popular in opinion polls and hopes to replace the president in elections next year.

The French president convened a string of meetings today with his own Socialist Party, former President Nicolas Sarkozy's conservative opposition party The Republicans, the far right National Front, the Greens and parties on the far left and centre.

France is a founding member of what is now the EU, but French voters rejected an EU constitution in 2005 that would have enshrined closer unity.

The country's heartland has a lot of the same issues like economic stagnation in certain regions and migration that drove the British vote to quit the EU.

When the Brexit result was announced Le Pen tweeted simply 'victory for freedom'.

'I would vote for Brexit, even if I think that France has 1,000 more reasons to leave than the UK,' she said, referring to the EU as 'decaying'.

Ms Le Pen has previously called for all member states to hold their own referendums.

Presidential elections are due in France in 2017, and Le Pen is one of the leading candidates – though polls have suggested that she may not win.

She has consistently argued that the EU is bad for French jobs and blames it for supposedly allowing criminals to enter the country.

Her insistence on placing the EU on the country's agenda, together with her growing popularity, raises the likelihood of a Frexit referendum in the years to come.

However, recent polls have placed the number of French citizens who would vote to leave the EU at 41 per cent.

And there are also fears that Brexit could also trigger a Czexit, a Swexit, and a Grexit in the Czech Republic, Sweden and Greece. Even if the union holds, the political earthquake that has erupted in Britain will have far-reaching aftershocks.

French President Francois Hollande pictured holding crunch meetings with the leaders of France's political parties