A NATION AT WAR, CANDIDATES CLAIM

FRENCH presidential candidates declared their country was at war yesterday as they addressed voters before tomorrow’s election.

The terrorist attack on the Champs Élysées has shaken up the final hours before the first round of France’s two-stage presidential vote.

Far-right hopeful Marine Le Pen yesterday demanded the immediate deportation of all foreign terror suspects, leading to accusations that she was using the attack for political gain.

Ms Le Pen said ‘this war against us is ceaseless and merciless’ and blamed François Hollande’s outgoing socialist government for ‘doing everything to ensure we lose’ it.

Conservative candidate François Fillon, meanwhile, told the nation: ‘We are at war. There is no alternative – it’s us or them.’

Four candidates are almost neck-and-neck in

the polls, with millions of voters undecided. The two leading contenders tomorrow will go headto-head on May 7 to determine France’s next leader. US President Donald Trump predicted last night the Paris attack will swing the vote, tweeting: ‘The people of France will not take much more of this.’

Ms Le Pen gained some support in the first opinion poll after the Paris attack, but centrist Emmanuel Macron was still predicted to win the first round of the election.

Ms Le Pen, the National Front candidate who was an early front-runner, told a French radio station yesterday she feared further attacks and called for France to take back control of its borders from the EU. She said: ‘Fundamentalist Islam is waging war and... the measures are not being taken to limit the risks.’

Socialist prime minister Bernard Cazeneuve accused her of ‘shamelessly trying to exploit fear and emotion to exclusively political ends’.

And Mr Macron urged voters not to ‘give in to fear’, saying Ms Le Pen ‘won’t be able to protect our citizens’.

He added: ‘There’s no such thing as zero risk. Anyone who pretends [otherwise] is both irresponsible and deceitful.’

Mr Fillon vowed to ‘destroy Isis’, saying: ‘This battle for freedom and security… will require an unyielding determination and a cool head.’

The other candidate in the poll, far-left JeanLuc Melenchon, has enjoyed a late surge.