Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, a rising star of France’s right wing, has backed Donald Trump’s bid for the White House.

The niece of Front National leader Marine Le Pen said the Republican presidential nominee “responds to people’s hopes” and wrote to Twitter: “Donald Trump is a less harmful candidate than Hillary Clinton.”

Her aunt has previously been compared to Mr. Trump due to their similar views on immigration, climate change, Christian values, and patriotism.

A New Yorker headline from December 2015 declared: “Donald Trump is now America’s Marine Le Pen”.

Marion became the youngest French Member of Parliament in modern history aged just 22 in 2012, while studying law in Paris, and remains one of the party’s only two members of parliament.

She is unapologetic about her strong Catholic faith and defence of traditional values, and recently called for Christians to stand up for their values in the wake of the Islamic State attack in Nice – where a priest was beheaded as he gave mass in a church.

She tweeted: “In the West as in the East, Christians must stand up to resist Islam!” Adding: “Faced with the threat that weighs on France, I decided to join the military reserve. I invite all the young patriots to do the same.”

She has also called on France to scrap the European open-borders Schengen agreement as her country wages a “war against radical Islam”.

Sarah Palin, the former Governor of Alaska and U.S. presidential running mate, recently wrote in Breitbart that Marion was her “political crush” who she would vote for if she were French.

“Marion Maréchal-Le Pen is the new deserved ‘It Girl’ of French politics and a clear voice of courage and common sense in a country and continent in need of both,” she wrote. Adding:

“But despite today’s tough losses, Marion and her aunt Marine Le Pen, the leader of the National Front (FN) Party, have established themselves and their supporters as a force to be reckoned with in France’s 2017 presidential race, in which Marine is sure to be a contender with her talented niece right behind her.”