A new Ifop poll reported by the Financial Times finds Marine Le Pen - leader of the conservative National Front party - ahead of all challengers in round one of the presidential election, were one held today. She also beats incumbent François Hollande in a run-off. Polls have never before shown her this strong.
Should Le Pen actually win the next presidential election, expect her to resist France ceding sovereignty to the EU. In fact, she might take France out of the EU, which would essentially cripple that organization.
Strange winds are blowing in Europe. Not only is nationalist Le Pen ahead in France, nationalist Nigel Farage's anti-EU United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) is looking strong in Britain.
It is premature to predict the victory of either. Should both win we may look back on the EU as a failed experiment resembling the post-World War I League of Nations.
An EU main weakness is that it is technocrat-dominated but politically unresponsive to European voter sentiment.
