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Newscast is on the face of it, a podcast about the news.

But it's also perhaps the world's most athletic podcast,

we have BBC correspondents dashing in and out,

ready to give us a deeper understanding of the biggest stories of the day.

Thankfully, we let them catch their breath before we actually start recording the podcast.

Listen to Newscast every day on BBC Sounds.

Hello and welcome to political thinking.

My guest this week is currently the most popular politician in France, which means that

Jordan Bardella, who is just 30 years old, is favourite to be elected

as his country's next president in just 18 months' time. He and his national rally party

have risen in the polls as President Macron has become ever more unpopular, French politics

has become ever more turbulent with five prime ministers in the past two years,

and as Monsieur Bardella has sought to cast aside his party's extremist past.

Originally called the National Front, its founder was Jean-Marie Le Pen, a convicted Holocaust denier.

Le Pen's daughter, Marine Le Pen, should have been the party's presidential candidate,

but she's currently unable to run because of a conviction for embezzling EU funds,

although she is appealing against that conviction.

For now, what they call in France Plan B, Plan B, is gaining momentum. As my As my guest tours France, woo's business leaders, talks to the foreign media as he seeks to convince those who once shunned him and his party that his message, France, anti-Irins and anti-EU, are now mainstream and not the views of a far-right extremists.

Jordan Bardela, welcome to political thinking.

Hello, and thank you for your invitation.

I should explain that we are conducting this interview with translation.

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