The leader of France's far-right National Front party, Marine Le Pen, has told CNBC that the country has suffered "tremendous losses" in many sectors and that it needs a strategic plan to help it back onto its feet.
Marine Le Pen has led France's socially conservative National Front party since the resignation of her father and the party's founder, Jean-Marie Le Pen, in 2011.
The party fervently opposes the European Union (EU) and is renowned for its very conservative and nationalist views on immigration and globalization. However, Marine Le Pen has tried to soften the party's image in recent years by de-radicalizing some of its positions and expelling some more controversial members for extreme comments, including her own father.
According to Le Pen, her fight is "not against religion or race."
Rather, she insists that sky-high levels of immigration experienced by France in recent years have brought anarchy and created divisions in French society, causing communities living side-by-side to be pitted against each other.
In Le Pen's view, it is critical to eliminate the "radical element" of society which she says is destroying France's values and stimulating fertile breeding grounds for jihadist recruiters.