There is a Trump's toupee breadth between UKIP and the Front National

Marine Le Pen has claimed that there is "not a hair's breadth" between the Front National and UKIP. She's right: it's more of a Trump's toupee between the two.

Le Pen has made a lot of progress in bringing her party into the mainstream and expelling members with more extreme views - including her father - but there is still some way to go before the Front National and UKIP could be considered that similar.

First Trump and now Le Pen - it looks like all the outsiders are going to be channelling Farage in the hope of electoral success!

Tactical withdrawal by French socialists leads to defeat Front National

The French Front National have failed to take control of any regions in last week's elections after an unprecedented pact between the socialists and conservatives which saw candidates stood down to help keep Marine Le Pen's party out of power.

Last week's regional elections had overtones of recent elections this side of the channel where left and right have united to stop UKIP from challenging the status quo. The big difference here, of course, is that UKIP isn't a racist party.  But despite the efforts of Marine Le Pen to make her father's party more moderate since she took the helm, it's still some way from being transformed into the kind of moderate party that can gain enough mainstream support to win elections.

The decision by the Socialists to withdraw candidates from the second round of voting to help the conservative Republicans is controversial and undermines the democratic process. Voters marked their preferences knowing how the votes should be split between the Socialists, Republicans and Front National. So-called tactical voting belongs in the ballot box, it is wrong for parties involved in the election to manipulate the result with tactical withdrawals.

If Le Pen continues to reform her party between now and the next election, it is hard to see how they can fail to capitalise on the 6.8m votes it received this time round.