Le Pen’s lifting of speech draws anger in France
Candidate: Tactic is a ‘wink’ to ex-rival to woo his voters.
Far-right candidate PARIS — Marine Le Pen lifted verbatim parts of a speech by a former rival in what her critics called plagiarism and she said was a deliberate “wink” to him to woo his conservative voters in France’s presidential runoff Sunday.
The stolen words and casual reaction by Le Pen and her team marked the latest shocking development in a French presidential campaign like no other. Perhaps more surprisingly, there was little sign it would seriously damage Le Pen.
Polls show her centrist rival Emmanuel Macron as the front-runner in the vote, seen as a test of global populism and a decisive moment for the European Union.
Le Pen borrowed from a speech delivered last month by Francois Fillon, the former Republicans party candidate, about France’s role in Europe and the world.
The subject is at the heart of Le Pen’s campaign. She promises to restore French glory, denouncing the effects of globalization on the French economy and culture and promising to pull France out of the EU and return to the franc currency.
Speaking April 15, Fillon described France as a force reaching out on multiple fronts, concluding, “France is something more and much more than an economic, agricultural or military power.” Le Pen, speaking Monday at a Paris region campaign rally, repeated the passage almost word-for-word.
Like three of her aides earlier in the day, Le Pen used the word “wink” to describe the extracts. At no point in the speech did she cite Fillon or acknowledge the source.
Le Pen added that her farright National Front party and Fillon’s conservative voters share “the same vision of France, of its greatness, of the role it should have in the world.”
Fillon and his aides have not commented on Le Pen’s move, which puts his Republicans party in an awkward spot. However the website that revealed the copied text, Ridicule TV, is reported to be run by Fillon supporters.
Polls suggest that as many as a third of Fillon’s voters will choose Le Pen in the second round — but Fillon himself, immediately after being eliminated in the first-round vote April 23, urged voters to keep the long-pariah National Front out of power and vote instead for Macron.
A writer well-known in ultraconservative circles, Paul-Marie Couteaux, claimed credit for the passage used by both Le Pen and Fillon.
Couteaux expressed hope it would encourage rightwing voters to unite under a single banner. He tweeted Tuesday that the passage was borrowed from his 1997 book “Europe Toward War.”
Couteaux has past links to both Fillon’s campaign and Le Pen, according to French media reports.
Le Pen and Macron have their only televised debate today. Both are going after supporters of Fillon and the nine other candidates knocked out in the first round.