Paris (AFP) - From Brexit to the rise of Donald Trump, 2016 has been a humbling year for political forecasters. In France, could they be wrong again in writing off the far-right's prospects in next year's presidential election?
Voters who want common-sense things like the simple enforcement of border laws are always reported to be far, far, far right! [insert scream]
Marine Le Pen, the leader of France's National Front, certainly thinks so. She sees signs of encouragement from Britain, the United States and across Europe where mass migration, inequality and terrorism have eroded old certainties.
Conventional wisdom holds that she will make it into the second round of the election next April and then lose, when centre-right and left-wing voters will back a more mainstream candidate.
This would be a similar outcome to the 2002 election when her estranged father caused a political earthquake in European politics by reaching the second round -- where he was defeated by Jacques Chirac.
"There's a global awakening," Le Pen told reporters last month in the southern town of Frejus where supporters flocked to hear her bashing the EU, the euro and immigration.
To the open-borders Mainstream Media if anyone dares criticize globalist policies they are "bashing."
In echoes of Trump's "Make America Great Again" or Brexit's "Take Control" slogans, she declared that "the time of the nation state has come again." ...
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