Friends of Marine Le Pen say that one of her familiar gestures is what you might call the fruit-machine pull. A downward tug of the right arm, fist clenched, in imitation of a person playing a one-armed bandit. In English it might be accompanied by the word “kerching!”. She has been making the gesture a lot recently. Because the kerchings keep on coming. “At exactly the moment Marine completed her de-demonisation process, events started happening on the world stage that push voters in her direction,” says columnist Cecile Cornudet. Brexit and Donald Trump's victory are two pieces of news that FN strategists could have dreamed of only in their wildest imaginings. “The UK is our best advertisement,” says Marine's friend Jean-Lin Lacapelle. “As for Trump... if it is OK for an American president to push for protection and immigration controls, then it is OK in France as well.”

Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage with Donald Trump in August 2016, Mississippi, USA



(AP)

But one question keeps coming back. How far-right is the National Front? In an FN-run France, walls go up. Foreigners and foreign goods are kept out. Brussels is pushed to the margin. The franc returns, and France comes first. According to veteran commentator Alain Duhamel, it is “a former party of the far right that has become a populist party with instincts that are xenophobic and authoritarian”. For the party's Steeve Briois, “far-right is not a term we accept. It makes an automatic link with Hitler, which is why our enemies use it.

We prefer patriotic, protectionist, national. Not national-ist. That sounds aggressive. And populist we like too.” Steeve Briois, FN mayor of Henin-Beaumont

In its economic plan the FN has swung far to the left, with anti-austerity and protectionist policies that are a clear signal to the working class. That leftward shift prompted the resignation of the former adviser to Marine Le Pen, who says the FN is “nationalist, populist and socialist. Not national-socialist - that has certain historical connotations. But social-nationalist.” What everyone would agree on is that the FN has built its programme around the idea of the nation - “national” identity and values.

Marine Le Pen casting her vote

in France's 2015 regional elections

(EPA)

Marine Le Pen says she is “not against immigrants, but against immigration” - because any nation needs first to look after the people who are its citizens. But for the FN's enemies, the nation-first answer is wrong, dangerous and a betrayal of France's mission to the world. “It is about universal values,” says Liberation's Joffrin. “Do they exist or not? I understand that when times are bad people want to return to their roots. That is why this national ideology is returning.”

But our duty is to go above that - to think of the values that matter for all human beings. The trouble is that these days, that is a very hard sell.” Laurent Joffrin, editor of Liberation