Hello and welcome to the Spectator podcast. I'm Lara Prendergast.

On this week's episode, we'll be discussing the rise of Marine Le Pen, how murder is handled

on social media, and how a cake has changed the debate about gay rights.

First up, Marine Le Pen's Frón National has surged in the polls and it now looks likely that she will make the presidential runoff in next year's election.

In this week's cover feature, Jonathan Fenb looks at how Le Pen has changed the French right, and considers the prospects of her rivals, Francois Hollande and Nicholas Sarkozy.

I'm joined now from Paris by Agnes Poirier and spectator writer Gavin Mortimer to discuss these changes to the French political landscape.

So Agnes, do you think Marine Le Pen could actually win the election next year?

No, she can't win.

But what she can do very well is to go through to the second round of the presidential elections, just like her father did 15 years ago.

I agree with Agnes that she won't win, but she will go through to the second round. In fact,

there was a poll in yesterday's Figaro, which said, who will people vote for in the first round?

And Le Pen and Jupé were tied at 28%. Olaund had 9%. So that shows you really,

I think that's a clear indication of the people were two candidates in the second round.

Marine Le Pen really has played a very, she's cleaned up the image of the Front National since her father.

And of course, the two have had a very bitter falling out.

And she's taken away from his denial of a Holocaust, where he called it just a detail,

and the overt racism that it was associated with.

And she's tried to clean it up.

And she's doing quite a good job.

And of course, she's helped by the fact that the French economy is in such a poor state

that's with the depressed areas, particularly in the north and in the south, allied, of course,

to the Islamic attacks since it had been going on since March 2012.

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