ANALYSIS/OPINION:

France’s presidential hopeful, Marine Le Pen, called for a halt to immigration, saying in the lead-up to the first round of elections that all the refugees running across the border are decimating the country’s culture.

It’s a boldness that’s leaving the conservative firebrand wide open to attack — just as President Donald Trump, expressing similar rhetoric, did in recent campaign times.

Look at her words, as recorded by UPI: “I would decide on a moratorium on all legal immigration to stop this frenzy, this uncontrolled situation that is dragging us down.”

She was referring to the mass wave of migrants who’ve entered France from Middle Eastern and North African points, UPI said.

“[We need] much more drastic, more reasonable, more humane and more manageable rules,” she said, of the state of France’s immigration, during her 90-minute speech aimed at rallying grassroots. “The French were no longer at home in France.”

And then this — the one that’ll make a good Muslim lobby group sit up and take notice for sure: “Behind mass immigration, there is terrorism.”

Danngggg …. now there’s a political candidate who’s not afraid to ruffle a few feathers.

“Give us France back,” Le Pen said. “I have heard this appeal everywhere I have been.”

Funny, that’s what America first whispered then shouted Donald Trump’s way, as well. And look where he ended up? Immigration, national security, border control — those were the top concerns of Americans come poll time. The economy and jobs, of course, played into the election. So did Hillary Clinton’s inability to show herself as little more than untrustworthy and entrenched.

But Trump hit the nail on the head with the whole open-borders-mean-terror-risk thing. Le Pen, facing first-round voter selection this Sunday, is in a tight race with the branded moderate, Emmanuel Macron. How it ends will send loud messages to the country’s elite — just as it did in America, just as it did with Brexit.

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