"'Well done Britain': Brexit vote boosts French far-right's election machine"
The horrific Bastille Day attack on Nice, in which a Tunisian delivery driver killed 84 people when he drove a heavy lorry at full-speed into a crowd watching fireworks, will be a defining concern in next year’s presidential and parliamentary elections. The Front National, which has accused the political class of failing to protect France, has already seen an increase in membership applications since the attack. Its key issues of security, immigration and national identity will dominate the debate.
But Brexit — which has provided the Front National’s leader, Marine Le Pen, with a public relations boost and comforted her anti-EU stance — will also play a role in the party’s manifesto and it has sought to capitalise on it.
“Brexit is undeniably a historic moment,” Nauth told the Guardian. “It will change the general state of mind … French ruling parties, whether Les Républicains or the Socialists, have claimed for years that the European Union construction was absolutely unavoidable – we could do nothing against it and we could never leave. And yet the British, thanks to the very courageous vote of their people, have now totally demolished that theory.”
Polls have shown that Le Pen will make it to the final round of the French presidential election next spring, but fall short of actually winning. But the parliamentary elections that follow are just as important, and could see Le Pen’s party make big gains. Brexit – which reinforces Le Pen’s stance against immigration and her calls for a similar in-out EU referendum in France – comes in handy for the party’s election machine.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/20/well-done-britain-brexit-vote-boosts-french-far-right-front-national-election-machine
Anti-immigrant, "France (America) First" hyper-nationalism, withdraw from international treaties and organizations - Trump and Le Pen have much in common.
