inaccuracies in your quick synopsis. One big fact, however, is that your version of the EU is the same as that touted by the RW and the Far Left. The "isms" have certainly come full circle here, a la Nigel Farage and Jill Stein and all those who see this result as an anti-neoliberalist vote. You need to analyze things much more critically.
Algeria was one colony of France, not plural. It was the last of France's three North African colonies (Morocco and Tunisia were the other two) to gain its independence. That occurred in 1963, so de Gaulle would have had little reason to think that England was trying to take over France's colonies there ((France had none by then) and was NOT the reason for his "Non."
The unsavory paratrooper you mention is Jean-Marie le Pen. He went to Algeria in 1957, not as a paratrooper but rather as an "intelligence" officer and was most likely directly involved in dirty torture and other tactics of that very dirty war. Daughter Marine, although a RWer, an advocate of Frexit and definitely not someone I admire, has actually broken politically with her father. She is more politically astute, although every bit as bad.
Le Pen's true political soulmate is his granddaughter, Marion Maréchal-Le Pen. Marine is her aunt.
While it is true that media outlets tout that Marine le Pen leads Hollande in the polls right now, the next Presidential elections are not until 2017. Nicolas Sarkozy also leads Hollande. Hollande is so unpopular with so many, he could even stand down and let a more popular candidate run in his stead in 2017. But that is not what is happening now and we have a ways to go until 2017. In the meantime, the adverse impacts of Brexit on the UK will really begin to sink in and make the EU "Exit" crowd think twice.
France also has a two-round election system. Candidates must be elected by an absolute majority. If there are, as usual, several candidates in the running and no one candidate achieves 51% of the vote in the first round, then there is a second round of voting between the top two finishers in the first round. Even now, the Sarko voters and the Hollande voters outnumber le Pen's.
While Marine le Pen's numbers may look good now, if she is one of the top two finishers in the Presidential elections, it is more likely than not that supporters of losing candidates will unite behind the other finisher to defeat her, just as was done in 2002, when Socialists held their noses to vote for Chirac in order to deny the Far Right a win.
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