Marine Le Pen, head of the National Front party in France, said that she was shocked by US President Donald Trump’s air strikes against Syria. The nationalist leader had previously praised Trump and been quick to congratulate him upon his electoral victory over Hillary Clinton. But his reversal of policy on Syria was “strongly condemned” by Le Pen who described the attack as “horrible.”

According to polls, Le Pen has a narrow lead for the first round of the French presidential election which will take place later this month. She appears likely to head to the second round of voting (where the top two candidates will compete head-to-head) where polls suggest establishment voters of the Center-Right will side with Socialists and Communists to defeat her and keep France’s borders wide open. Regardless, Len Pen is already a major player in European politics and seems set to score better than nationalists have in France in generations.

Le Pen recently met with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a key ally of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad. He said that the French nationalist leader represented a “fast-growing element” of European politics. Putin described Trump’s attack on Syria as an “illegal act of aggression.” Russia has strongly supported Assad’s pro-Christian regime as it has battled to defeat US-backed Islamic terrorists seeking to overthrow the government.

NOTE: Pat Buchanan recently declared, “Putin stands against the Western progressive vision of what mankind’s future ought to be. Years ago, he aligned himself with traditionalists, nationalists and populists of the West, and against what they had come to despise in their own decadent civilization.”