With both the French government and opposition in crisis, the door is open for Marine Le Pen to move firmly into the mainstream of French politics

French President François Hollande has suffered from consistently low approval ratings and his Socialist Party received exceptionally disappointing results in both the country’s local and European elections in 2014. As John Gaffney writes, however, the main opposition party, the UMP, has also been hit by a series of scandals, including the revelation that the party’s finances contain debts of around 80 million euros.

He argues that the issues being faced by the two mainstream parties are not only damaging their electoral chances, but fundamentally alienating voters from the political class. Ultimately both the left and right are laying the foundations for Marine Le Pen and the Front National to make an impact in the 2017 presidential elections.