Marine Le Pen - The African Mirror

Apr

2022

Faced with criticism, Le Pen allies tone down rhetoric on proposed hijab ban

A planned hijab ban if French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen is elected would come "little by little" and be determined by lawmakers, her allies said, marking a shift in tone less than a week ahead of the final presidential vote. The far-right core of Le Pen's programme has come under closer scrutiny as campaigning enters its final days. Louis Aliot, the far-right mayor of Perpignan and former life companion of Le Pen, said in an interview with France Inter radio that the hijab ban was one of several political tools to fight "Islamism", but that its implementation needed to…

Apr

2022

By The African Mirror

French prosecutor studying EU anti-fraud agency report on Le Pen

WORLD

FRENCH prosecutors said they are examining a report by the European Union's anti-fraud agency accusing far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen and members of her party of misappropriating thousands of euros' worth of EU funds. Le Pen is challenging Emmanuel Macron in a presidential election with opinion polls showing Macron edging ahead in next Sunday's second-round runoff. The Paris prosecutor's office confirmed that it was studying a report it received from the EU anti-fraud agency OLAF on March 11. Investigative website Mediapart wrote on Saturday that the OLAF report claimed Le Pen had misappropriated 140,000 euros of public money with…

Apr

2022

By The African Mirror

Macron and Le Pen head for French election runoff, projections show

WORLD

MIMOSA SPENCER, SYBILLE DE LA HAMAIDE and TASSILO HUMMEL FRANCE'S incumbent leader Emmanuel Macron and far-right challenger Marine Le Pen are heading for an April 24 presidential election runoff, projections showed after first-round voting. Macron garnered 28.1-29.5% of votes in the first round while Le Pen won 23.3-24.4%, according to separate estimates by pollsters Ifop, OpinionWay, Elabe and Ipsos. Those estimates, published as voting ended, are usually very reliable in France. If confirmed, that outcome would set up a duel between an economic liberal with a globalist outlook in Macron and a deeply eurosceptic economic nationalist who, until the Ukraine…