Le Pen threatens to pull France out of EU AP,

1486312606914589600LYON, France: Le Pen threatens to pull France out of EU AP,

LYON, France: French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen is reiterating her commitment to pull France out of the EU and to restore the franc as the country’s official currency.
She said in Lyon on Sunday she plans, if elected, to schedule a referendum within her first six months on a “Frexit” and intends to negotiate issues like borders and currency with the EU.
Le Pen said she also wants France to leave NATO’s integrated command and to build up the country’s capabilities to provide for its own defense.

The National Front (FN) leader attacked “mass immigration,” globalization and “Islamic fundamentalism” and said she wanted a France “which owes nothing to anyone.”
Polls have shown for months that 48-year-old Le Pen will win enough votes in the first round of the election on April 23 to reach the runoff, but they currently show that she will be defeated in the second round on May 7.
With former investment banker Emmanuel Macron appearing increasingly likely to be her ultimate opponent, Le Pen told the Lyon crowd that “faced with the cash-rich rightwing and the cash-rich leftwing, only I am the candidate of the people.”
It was also a reference to the previous frontrunner in the presidential race, conservative candidate Francois Fillon, who is embroiled in revelations his wife drew hundreds of thousands of euros in salary as his parliamentary assistant but never actually worked.
The claims have left 62-year-old Fillon struggling to remain a candidate.
She vowed a “zero tolerance” approach to crime with the recruitment of 15,000 extra police, focusing particular attention on the troubled suburbs of many French cities.
On Saturday, Le Pen published a list of 144 “commitments” built around putting France first.
But there were empty seats in the hall where she spoke, in contrast to a packed venue in the same city on Saturday where 39-year-old Macron addressed 8,000 supporters with thousands more watching on a giant screen outside.
“People are waking up. They see Brexit, they see Trump and they’re saying to themselves: ‘It’s worth going to vote’,” he said before her speech.
A former economy minister under unpopular Socialist President Francois Hollande, Macron is also running as a candidate outside the political establishment and has founded his own movement, En Marche (On The Move).
Macron said Le Pen “did not speak in the name of the people” and he took aim at nepotism in the FN, which was founded by her father, former paratrooper Jean-Marie Le Pen.

source arabnews

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