French rallies on May Day bring insults and unrest
Candidates trade barbs during campaign’s final few days
PARIS — Far-right leader Marine Le Pen and centrist Emmanuel Macron hunted working class votes Monday, entering the final week of an increasingly nasty campaign for president.
Thousands across France celebrated May Day by showing their top concerns are jobs and the kind of country the next leader will give them.
Amid the holiday marches, masked demonstrators threw firebombs at police in Paris before being dispersed by tear gas. Four officers were injured, with one seriously burned in the face.
While violence from fringe groups is a standard presence in French demonstrations, at least some of those who mixed in the union-organized march came with an angry message against both candidates.
“Not one or the other; instead it’s the people’s self-defence,” read one sign.
“Macron equals Louis XVI, Le Pen equals Le Pen,” read another, a reference to Marine Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie, the co-founder of the anti-immigration National Front party known for his extremist views.
This Sunday’s runoff election is being watched closely by other European governments and financial markets to see if the French hand power to the populist Le Pen.
Mainstream parties on the left and right failed to form a bloc against her as they did in 2002 when Jean-Marie Le Pen was trounced by Jacques Chirac.
Addressing thousands at a venue outside Paris, Marine Le Pen skewered Macron, a former investment banker, as a puppet of financiers and Islamic fundamentalists, a lapdog of Socialist President Francois Hollande and a member of the “caviar left.”
The 39-year-old Macron returned the insults at a Paris rally in front of thousands of supporters.
He criticized Marine Le Pen’s “rude manners” and called her “the heir” — a reference to her father.
While Macron is favoured in the polls, a high abstention rate or a blank protest ballot could help Le Pen.