Sometimes an extremist fringe in a country can actually be a good sign. Because it’s being routed by progress and good sense, such a faction makes noise that can be misheard as a rallying cry when it’s really a death rattle. But if such a group moves from the margins to the center, that’s cause for concern. Marine Le Pen, daughter of racist cuckoo clock Jean-Marie Le Pen and leader of France’s Far Right Front National Party, which enjoyed surprising success in the country’s recent elections, just sat for an interview with Mathieu von Rohr of Spiegel. The opening:

“Spiegel:

Ms. Le Pen, having won 25 percent of the French vote, your Front National party stands as one of the primary beneficiaries of the May 25 European Parliament election. How could such a thing come to pass?

Marine Le Pen:

The French want to regain control of their own country. They want to determine the course of their own economy and their immigration policies. They want their own laws to take precedence over those of the European Union. The French have understood that the EU does not live up to the utopia they were sold. It has distanced itself significantly from a democratic mode of operation.

Spiegel:

Yet, prior to the election, it was said that the establishment of lead candidates for the two biggest groups — Jean-Claude Juncker for the center-right and Martin Schulz for the center-left — would strengthen democracy in the EU.

Marine Le Pen:

That is totally bogus. Everybody knew that the parliament wouldn’t be making the final decision on the next president of the European Commission.

Spiegel:

Do you want to destroy Europe?

Marine Le Pen:

I want to destroy the EU, not Europe! I believe in a Europe of nation-states. I believe in Airbus and Ariane, in a Europe based on cooperation. But I don’t want this European Soviet Union.

Spiegel:

The EU is a vast project for peace. It has helped ensure 70 years without war on the Continent.

Marine Le Pen:

No. Europe is war. Economic war. It is the increase of hostilities between the countries. Germans are denigrated as being cruel, the Greeks as fraudsters, the French as lazy. Ms. Merkel can’t travel to any European country without being protected by hundreds of police. That is not brotherhood.”