Le Pen, Macron trade barbs at May Day rallies

Paris, Monday

Far-right French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has accused her pro-EU centrist rival Emmanuel Macron of being the “candidate of continuity”. She linked Macron to the unpopular current President, Francois Hollande, in whose cabinet he once served.

Le Pen trails Macron in the polls by about 20 percentage points ahead of Sunday’s second round of voting. Macron, who was set to hold a rally later, earlier told the BBC the EU must reform or face the prospect of “Frexit”.

Meanwhile, clashes have broken out between police and protesters on the sidelines of a traditional May Day labour march in Paris. Two officers were hurt when masked demonstrators threw petrol bombs at police who responded with tear gas, authorities said.

Although five big trade unions have urged their members not to vote for National Front (FN) leader Le Pen, only two have expressed their support for Macron. Earlier, Le Pen’s estranged 88-year-old father and the founder of the FN was at a rally by the statue of Joan of Arc, a long-time symbol of patriotism for the FN.

This is where Jean-Marie Le Pen traditionally held his May Day rallies but this year’s event was attended by only a couple of hundred of the party’s old guard, the BBC’s Paris correspondent Hugh Schofield reports.

Marine Le Pen has sought to modernise the FN in recent years and at her rally in Paris, she called herself the candidate of change, belief and action. She launched a full-throttled attack on Mr Macron, calling him the candidate of “a morbid continuity, littered with the corpses of jobs transferred offshore, the ruins of bust businesses, and the gaping holes of deficit and debt”. - BBC

The post Le Pen, Macron trade barbs at May Day rallies appeared first on Mediamax Network Limited.