Besides his penchant for champagne and singing outmoded French songs, far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen is known to like a practical joke.

So when he strode purposefully out of his private office at the National Front’s presidential convention outside Paris this weekend toward the press tent, camera crews in tow, nobody seemed overly surprised when he veered off at the last minute into the lavatory.

The cameras were still rolling when he reappeared with a grin, chin jutting forth, to carry on with the presidential show. At 78, Mr. Le Pen can afford such low farce: his popularity ratings have never been better. An IFOP poll in this weekend’s Le Monde showed that 18% of the French say they will “definitely” vote for the National Front chief. That is nine points more than at the same period before the 2002 election, in which he horrified Europe by coming second to President Chirac.

Mr. Le Pen is convinced that his fifth presidential campaign since 1974 — and probably his last — will end in the ultimate electoral earthquake in April’s elections: “My goal is not the second round, it’s the third: the presidency,” he told the Daily Telegraph as he prepared the formal launch of his presidential campaign in Le Bourget, on the outskirts of Paris, yesterday.

Around him in the party’s Bleu-Blanc-Rouge hall in Le Bourget, party faithful, enacted the traditions French rural life, playing boules and tombola and tasting local delicacies, such as oysters, Muscat, and Corsican cured ham brought by regional National Front representatives.

T-shirts and caps are aligned on one stall with the slogan on France: “Love it or leave it,” alongside champagne bottles and lighters with labels of Mr. Le Pen smiling in front of the Elysée Palace.

Before 2002, the image would have raised a laugh. This time, his rivals are taking the threat extremely seriously.

The former paratrooper’s cause has been helped by a mood of introspective nationalism sweeping France, rocked by last year’s suburban riots, a surprise No vote in a referendum on the European constitution and profound disillusionment in its politicians.

His virulent anti-immigration stance, promise of “national preference” but also defense of French sovereignty by, for example, bringing back the franc, have struck a chord.

“I feel the country’s great anxiety in my bones. There are departments like the 93” Seine Saint-Denis “that are losing a part of their population — the true French — but also law-abiding immigrants who don’t want their children dragged through the maelstrom of delinquency and violence,” he says.

Observers say that the younger faction of frontistes, epitomized by his daughter Marine Le Pen, who condones gay marriage, has given a more progressive face to Mr. Le Pen.

Analysts say that despite his rising ratings, Mr. Le Pen’s chances of victory in France’s 2007 presidential elections are slimmer than in 2002 because this time the race is dominated by two relatively young candidates, the socialist Segolene Royal, 53, and Nicolas Sarkozy, 52, the leader of the ruling center-right UMP party.