There's no limit for the level of support that France's Front National could receive in the upcoming presidential vote and recent polls are proof of that, a key member of the far-right party told CNBC on Thursday.
"I remember during the local elections, they told me that there was the glass ceiling and that I would not be able to win, but we won," David Rachline, mayor of the southern city of Fréjus and the election campaign manager for the National Front, told CNBC.
"And for the regional elections, they said we could not go over 20-22 percent in the first round because of the glass ceiling but we scored 30 percent in the first round and in some regions, we scored 45 percent in the second round. So that is the proof that there is no glass ceiling," he explained.
The rising support for the far right is the biggest concern for market players when they look at France and the wider European Union. The Front National's main aim is to break away from the European Union, claiming that the political union is holding back the French economy.
"We assessed what we could gain from it (a 'Frexit')," Rachline told CNBC, saying that the Front National wants to implement a strategy of "smart protectionism" to reduce unemployment figures and the country's trade balance deficit.
"We want to free ourselves from the EU to implement very specific measures like the smart protectionism. The EU today forbids it," he said.
One of the main tasks of the European Commission - the EU's executive branch - is to negotiate, on behalf of its members, trade deals with other countries in the world. France's Front National believes that globalization and international trade hinder the country's industry.
Rachline reiterated that if the party led by Marine Le Pen wins the presidential election, it will seek a new relationship with the EU.
"We want to first negotiate, get our sovereignty back in terms of currency, budget, territory to control our borders and (our) economy to have an economic patriotism. After, if we get the reforms, we can stay in the EU, a new Europe of nations, free and sovereign. Otherwise, we will suggest to the French to exit the EU, like the United Kingdom did recently, and it is nothing extraordinary," he said.