French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has announced that she is temporarily stepping down as head of her National Front party.

Monday's move appears to be a way for Le Pen to embrace a wide range of potential voters ahead of the May 7 runoff between herself and Emmanuel Macron, the independent centrist who came in first in Sunday's first round.

"Tonight, I am no longer the president of the National Front. I am the presidential candidate," she said on French public television news.

Le Pen has said in the past that she is not a candidate of her party, and made that point when she rolled out her platform in February, saying the measures she was espousing were not her party's, but her own.

Le Pen has worked to bring in voters from the left and right for several years, cleaning up her party's racist, anti-Semitic image to do so. </s> French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has announced she is temporarily stepping down as head of her National Front party.

Monday's move appears to be an attempt to appeal to a wider range of potential voters ahead of the May 7 run-off between herself and Emmanuel Macron, the independent centrist who came in first in Sunday's first round.

It would also appear that Le Pen realises association with the toxic National Front party, which has a history of intolerance and racism, will scupper her chances of being elected.

The brazen move to disassociate herself from the party she has led since 2011 can be seen as an attempt to hoodwink voters in the battle for France's heart and soul.

"Tonight, I am no longer the president of the National Front. I am the presidential candidate," she said on French public television news.

Le Pen has said in the past that she is not a candidate of her party, and made that point when she rolled out her platform in February, saying the measures she was espousing were not her party's, but her own.

She has worked to bring in voters from the left and right for several years, attempting to clean up her party's racist, anti-Semitic image to do so, but the party remains a totem of right wing extremism in France and beyond.

She took over leadership of the party from her controversial father Jean-Marie Le Pen, who was leader for almost 40 years since its foundation in 1972.

He has been found guilty of racism or inciting racial hatred on a number of occasions, as well as being found guilty by a Munich court of "minimizing the Holocaust, which caused the deaths of six million Jews". </s> Chesnot/Getty Images(PARIS) — French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen announced Monday that she is temporarily stepping down from her party’s leadership as she battles for the presidency. She will face off against Emmanuel Macron during the second round of the election on May 7.

“I’m taking a leave of absence as president of @FN_officiel [the Front National]; I’m now simply a candidate in the presidential election,” Le Pen tweeted from her official account.

Le Pen and Macron bested nine other candidates to advance past the first round of voting on Sunday. They will now spend two weeks fighting for votes ahead of the second and final round.

Her decision to step down from the leadership of the National Front party appears to be an attempt to broaden her appeal as she and Macron battle to gain the support of voters who backed losing candidates in the first round of voting.

Since the results of the first round of voting became clear, Macron has enjoyed a number of high-profile endorsements, including from French President François Hollande and Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve.

The National Front’s image has been tarnished by the reputation of her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who led the party until his daughter took it over in 2011.

The elder Le Pen was widely rebuked for calling Nazi gas chambers “a detail of history.”

Marine Le Pen has denounced these remarks and worked to broaden her party’s appeal.

The two opposing French candidates received tacit support from two opposing U.S. politicians in the lead up to the first round vote.

President Donald Trump, while not offering a formal endorsement, said in an interview that Le Pen was “the strongest on what’s been going on in France.”

Former President Barack Obama, meanwhile, phoned Macron to wish him well ahead of the vote. Obama’s spokesman said it was not an official endorsement. </s> French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has announced that she is temporarily stepping down as head of her National Front party.

Monday’s move appears to be a way for Le Pen to embrace a wide range of potential voters ahead of the May 7 runoff between herself and Emmanuel Macron, the independent centrist who came in first in Sunday’s first round.

“Tonight, I am no longer the president of the National Front. I am the presidential candidate,” she said on French public television news.

Le Pen has said in the past that she is not a candidate of her party, and made that point when she rolled out her platform in February, saying the measures she was espousing were not her party’s, but her own.

Le Pen has worked to bring in voters from the left and right for several years, cleaning up her party’s racist, anti-Semitic image to do so.

Final results from the election’s first round show that Macron got nearly 1 million more votes than Le Pen, with both advancing to the May 7 runoff.

Macron collected 8.66 million votes, or 24.01%, while Le Pen garnered 7.68 million votes, or 21.30%, according to the official final count published by the Interior Ministry.

Conservative candidate Francois Fillon got 20.01%, and left-wing candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon, 19.58% of the vote. The other seven candidates were far behind.

Turnout was 77.77%, the lowest in a French presidential election for 15 years. </s> Ms Le Pen said that the far-Right party must be relaunched after conceding defeat.

She had temporarily stepped down as leader of the Front National inbetween the first round of voting and the run-off in an attempt to broaden her appeal.

Jean-Marie Le Pen said on Sunday evening that his daughter's bid for the presidency had been undermined by its promise to ditch the euro and hold a referendum on EU membership. </s> Marine Le Pen, French National Front political party leader and candidate for the French 2017 presidential election, attends a campaign rally in Marseille, France, April 19, 2017. — Reuters pic

MARSEILLE, April 20 — French far-right candidate Marine Le Pen yesterday accused her rivals of turning a blind eye to Islamic terrorism at her last major rally before the first round of a nailbiting race for president.

Addressing nearly 5,000 flag-waving supporters in the southern city of Marseille, where two Frenchmen were arrested Tuesday on suspicion of planning an attack on the election, the National Front (FN) leader said: “I have been denouncing this terrible poison of Islamic terrorism since I launched my campaign ... and none of my rivals are willing to debate the subject.

“They wanted to stay quiet about this problem, to suppress it, to keep it at a distance like one sweeps dust under the carpet,” she said.

“The silence of the other candidates comes from shame, the shame of being a member or even having led a government which did nothing to lower the threat and even created the conditions for this scourge to develop,” she told the rally, which was held under tight security.

Police fired teargas and arrested four people after around 500 people demonstrated against Le Pen and tried to march towards the rally.

Some of them threw projectiles and firecrackers.

“Terrorist acts have multiplied throughout Europe during the campaign,” she said. “Here in Marseille two fanatics were arrested before they committed odious crimes.”

Le Pen, 48, has spent years trying to grow support for the FN by campaigning on bread-and-butter issues, but in the final days of the race she has returned to its stock themes of immigration and national identity.

In a BFM television interview yesterday she repeated that she would slash immigration, make it harder to get French nationality and crack down on suspected Islamists.

Polls show Le Pen, 39-year-old centrist Emmanuel Macron, conservative former prime minister Francois Fillon and hard left firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon locked in a tight four-way race ahead of Sunday’s first round of voting.

A new survey published yesterday showed Macron leading on 23 per cent to Le Pen’s 22.5 per cent — both of them down slightly.

Fillon had improved to 19.5 per cent while Melenchon had reached 19 per cent, narrowing the gap with the frontrunners.

The top two will advance to a run-off vote on May 7.

Jean-Yves Camus, an academic and expert on the FN, told AFP that Le Pen had returned to the “fundamentals, and particularly immigration” in the final run-in.

“It’s back to basics,” he said.

“The FN top brass has decided to go full throttle for far-right voters.”

Struggling Socialist candidate Benoit Hamon, whom polls place fifth, attempted to turn around his campaign at a rally in Paris.

Hamon urged voters to “wake up, because you alone can avoid a nightmare for France.”

After a string of Islamist-inspired assaults in France, security to the centre of the campaign following the arrests of two men seen in a video pledging allegiance to the Islamic State jihadist group.

A cache of weapons and explosives was found in the apartment of the suspects named as Clement Baur, 23, and Mahiedine Merabet, 29.

Macron yesterday told a rally that he was the only candidate capable “of ensuring the security” of his countrymen and pledged to “track down all those who have attacked our country or are planning to do so and prevent them from doing harm.”

Le Pen has claimed that her proposals such as expelling any foreigner convicted of a crime or suspected of being radicalised would have helped prevent some of the attacks since 2015 which have claimed more than 200 lives.

Left-leaning Le Monde newspaper has dismissed the claim as “absurd” given that most of the attackers were French, many without criminal records.

“You don’t seek votes on the backs of dead people. It’s a sort of moral red line,” the newspaper said.

French voters have so far been more concerned about unemployment and their spending power than terrorism or security, polls show, though analysts warn this would change quickly in the event of bloodshed.

Some analysts have also depicted the French election as a sort of referendum on the European Union, with Le Pen proposing to a referendum on France’s membership of the 28-country club and scrap the euro common currency.

On Tuesday night, she insisted that the TF1 television channel remove the blue-and-yellow European flag from behind her before an interview.

But Melenchon, her eurosceptic hard left opponent, sought to soften his position on Tuesday night, stating that he did not seek to end the European Union or the euro despite criticising the “ultra-liberal” trading bloc for years.

“Don’t believe what they tell you, ‘He wants to leave Europe, the euro’... let’s be serious,” he told supporters.

The Communist-backed candidate has pledged to renegotiate some of the founding treaties of the bloc, however, which would cast serious doubt on the viability of the postwar project of integrating the continent.

Polls show that a majority of French people still support the EU and the euro.

The election has been one of the most unpredictable in decades and takes place against the backdrop of Britain’s shock decision to leave the EU and Donald Trump’s presidential victory in the United States. — AFP </s> Conservative French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has a real chance of winning the election, and it’s leaving liberal citizens distraught. The National Front leader is anti-immigration and anti-EU, and has a list of even more frightening policies. Learn more about her here!

Marine Le Pen, 48, is currently in a close second place in the runoff of the French presidential election, gaining ground on current front-runner Emmanuel Macron, 39. Macron is running without the backing of a political party, making this the first time main left-wing or right-wing parties don’t have a candidate in the second round. In the first round of the election, Macron won 23.8% of votes, while Le Pen took 21.5%. Marine won a stunning 7.6 million votes on April 23, which is the strongest result ever for a Front National candidate.

Marine is the leader of the National Front/Front National, France’s right-wing populist and nationalist political party. The party, founded in 1972, has opposed the European Union since its formation, and is anti-immigration. National Front also promotes zero tolerance toward law and order issues, and is for economic protectionism — restricting trade between countries. Marine became the leader of the party in 2011, succeeding her own father, Jean-Marie Le Pen.

Jean-Marie was extremely controversial, and Marine became popular after softening the party’s image. She turned the National Front into one of France’s largest political parties, the most popular among 18-34 year old citizens, according to a 2016 poll.

Marine Le Pen — See Pics Of The French Presidential Candidate

3. Her campaign platform is extremely conservative

Marine, aligning with the right-wing ideals of the National Front, has a majorly conservative platform for her presidency. She’s campaigned on the “automatic” deportation of illegal immigrants, as well as only allowing 10,000 immigrants into France per year. She wants “extremist” mosques closed, a fixed retirement age at 60, a 35-hour work week, and a “new” EU. Additionally, she wants social housing to go to French nationalists before anyone else.

4. Her partner is the vice president of the National Front

Marine has been in a relationship with the vice president of the National Front, Louis Aliot, 47, since 2009. He was also the head of Le Pen’s presidential campaign in 2012, and served as her spokesperson. She was previously married to Franck Chauffroy, from 1995 to 2000, and married to Eric Lorio, from 2002 to 2006. She has three children from her marriage to Franck — Jehanne, 17, Louis, 18, and Mathilde Chauffroy, 18.

Her father, Jean-Marie, was a radical and extremist political leader. Her family survived a bombing at their home in 1976 as they slept in their beds meant for Jean-Marie. The bomb exploded in the stairwell of their apartment building, blasting a hole in the outside wall. Marine, her sisters Yann and Marie Caroline, and her parents were unharmed.

HollywoodLifers, do you think Marine Le Pen will win the French presidential election? Let us know! </s> Marine Le Pen, the leader of France's National Front party, has been formally placed under investigation in connection with a corruption scandal, a spokesman for the far-right party told CNN on Friday.

She will appeal against the decision on Monday, National Front press director Alain Vizier said.

In the French criminal justice system, a "formal investigation" is the step before filing charges.

Catherine Griset, Le Pen's chief of staff, was formally charged as part of a probe into the alleged misuse of EU funds in February. Le Pen's bodyguard, Thierry Legier, was also questioned.

The controversy shadowed Le Pen's campaign for the French presidency. </s> PARIS, April 28 (Reuters) - The man designated to replace French presidential hopeful Marine Le Pen as head of the far-right National Front party has refused the job and will focus on defending himself against allegations he made questionable comments about the Holocaust, National Front member Louis Aliot said on Friday.

Aliot, Marine Le Pen's partner in private life, announced the decision in a television interview with BFM TV, saying Jean-Francois Jalkh, a hitherto little-known vice-president of the party, did not want to take up the post in the current climate.

Days from the May 7 presidential ballot where Marine Le Pen faces off against Emmanuel Macron, Alio said Jalkh would file a legal complaint over what he called totally unfounded accusations of ambiguous stances on the mass killing of Jews during World War Two.
Presidential candidate Marine Le Pen announces she is stepping down as leader of the National Front.