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Le Pen shrugs off yet another defection in battle for French far-right

Veteran French far-right politician Marine Le Pen shrugged off another defection from her party to rival Eric Zemmour on Sunday amid an increasingly bitter battle ahead of presidential elections in April.

Le Pen shrugs off yet another defection in battle for French far-right
French presidential candidate Eric Zemmour (R) next to French lawyer Gilbert Collard following his defection from National Assembly. Photo: Bertrand Guar/AFP

One-time Le Pen ally and confidant Gilbert Collard formally announced Saturday that he was joining Zemmour’s team and appeared at a rally alongside the anti-Islam writer and pundit in the south of France.

The European MP follows two other anti-immigration hardliners from Le Pen’s National Rally party to join Zemmour in the last week: fellow MEP Jerome Riviere and senior party official Damien Rieu.

“I don’t pay much attention to all these little manoeuvres between politicians because all of my energies are directed towards the issues of French people,” Le Pen told France 3 television on Sunday.

A new poll published on Saturday showed President Emmanuel Macron winning the first round of the election on April 10 with 25 percent, followed by Le Pen and right-winger Valerie Pecresse from the Republicans party on 15.5 percent each.

The poll by the Ipsos-Sopra Steria group, with a large sample size of 12,500 people, showed Zemmour trailing in fourth place on 13 percent.

The top two candidates in the first round go through to a run-off, where Macron was seen winning against Le Pen by 57-43 percent and against Pecresse by a narrower 54-46 percent, the poll showed.

READ ALSO:

‘Kebab shop’

Zemmour is hoping that a string of defections this month, including by the former number two of the Republicans party, Guillaume Peltier, can help him reinvigorate a campaign that is seen by analysts as stagnating.

Speaking in Cannes on Saturday night in front of a crowd of around 4,000 people, he focused on his core issues of crime, Islam and what he sees as out-of-control immigration.

“I don’t want a kebab shop in every village,” he declared.

Le Pen said it was “coherent” that the defectors from her party had turned against her as she seeks to present a more moderate image to the electorate.

“Since the start of the campaign they have criticised my decision to make purchasing power my priority,” she said, contrasting it with Zemmour’s relentless campaigning on immigration and Islam.

“They criticise me for not wanting to get involved in the mad idea of a religious war (in France), or a civil war which they almost seem to want for the country,” Le Pen added.

In a statement last week announcing his decision to join Zemmour, Rieu claimed that Le Pen’s party was “no longer able to motivate our voters” and “lots of senior figures and grassroots campaigners don’t believe in it any more.”

But Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told the Journal du Dimanche newspaper on Sunday that Le Pen remained “the most dangerous person for the country” as Macron’s biggest rival.

“If she ever wins powers that it will lead to national division, then civil war,” he warned.

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POLITICS

New Caledonia airport to reopen Monday, curfew reduced: authorities

New Caledonia's main international airport will reopen from Monday after being shut last month during a spate of deadly unrest, the high commission in the French Pacific territory said, adding a curfew would also be reduced.

New Caledonia airport to reopen Monday, curfew reduced: authorities

The commission said Sunday that it had “decided to reopen the airport during the day” and to “push back to 8:00 pm (from 6:00 pm) the start of the curfew as of Monday”.

The measures had been introduced after violence broke out on May 13 over a controversial voting reform that would have allowed long-term residents to participate in local polls.

The archipelago’s Indigenous Kanaks feared the move would dilute their vote, putting hopes for eventually winning independence definitively out of reach.

READ ALSO: Explained: What’s behind the violence on French island of New Caledonia?

Barricades, skirmishes with the police and looting left nine dead and hundreds injured, and inflicted hundreds of millions of euros in damage.

The full resumption of flights at Tontouta airport was made possible by the reopening of an expressway linking it to the capital Noumea that had been blocked by demonstrators, the commission said.

Previously the airport was only handling a small number of flights with special exemptions.

Meanwhile, the curfew, which runs until 6:00 am, was reduced “in light of the improvement in the situation and in order to facilitate the gradual return to normal life”, the commission added.

French President Emmanuel Macron had announced on Wednesday that the voting reform that touched off the unrest would be “suspended” in light of snap parliamentary polls.

Instead he aimed to “give full voice to local dialogue and the restoration of order”, he told reporters.

Although approved by both France’s National Assembly and Senate, the reform had been waiting on a constitutional congress of both houses to become part of the basic law.

Caledonian pro-independence movements had already considered reform dead given Macron’s call for snap elections.

“This should be a time for rebuilding peace and social ties,” the Kanak Liberation Party (Palika) said Wednesday before the announcement.

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