She is setting the agenda on Islam. Desperate to compete, Sarkozy’s party has poached her ideas and will hold its own debate on Islam and secularism next month. But key Muslim voices are complaining that France is rife with an Islamophobia that resembles the antisemitism of France in the 1930s.

Le Pen’s eyes widen. “But there’s no Islamophobia. People are just trying to recreate the conditions of a latent conflict aimed at making French people feel guilty. If you’re in favour of respecting the law, you’re an Islamophobe!

Marine Le Pen is interviewed in the Guardian, 22 March 2011