‘Arson’ attempt at Le Pen HQ: police
Presidential race tightens
PARIS, April 13, (Agencies): An arson attempt left very minor damage at the Paris building where French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has her headquarters, a police source said, and Le Pen accused leftist groups of the attack.
The police source said the ground floor of the central Paris building was targeted and graffiti mentioning Le Pen’s National Front was found nearby. The source said the damage — to a door and a doormat, according to news agency AFP — was likely to be the result of a criminal act and not an accident. The party’s premises are higher up in the building. Interior Minister Matthias Fekl condemned the attack.
“These are unacceptable acts, the democratic debate must take place in the ballot box,” Fekl told RTL radio, without giving any details about the attack itself.
“We have been in touch with the National Front candidate’s team since last night and will see with them if it is necessary to strengthen security procedures.”
Le Pen told France 2 television she believed a leftist group was responsible, but she gave no detail and did not say why she believed one such group was responsible. “I assume this is due to a small leftist group,” she said. “These groups act in total impunity,” she added, saying that the government should dissolve them.
AFP said a group calling itself “Combat xenophobia” contacted them to claim responsibility for the arson attempt.
Meanwhile, police showed France’s presidential election campaign tightening further on Wednesday as financial markets fretted about the rising popularity of a far-left candidate who wants to put France’s European Union membership to a vote.
Investors have long been anxious about election frontrunner Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front, who has promised a referendum on whether to quit the EU and ditch the euro.
Le Pen
Investors
She has been joined on the list of investors’ concerns by far-left veteran Jean-Luc Melenchon, who has surged in the polls after strong performances in two candidates’ debates.
The Communist-backed Melenchon also wants a referendum on EU membership after an attempt to renegotiate the EU treaties.
The latest Ifop-Fiducial poll on Wednesday showed Le Pen winning 23.5 percent in the April 23 first round, one point ahead of centrist Emmanuel Macron.
Both Le Pen and Macron’s support dipped by half a point from Tuesday while conservative Francois Fillon was stable on 19 percent and Melenchon unchanged on 18.5 percent.
The top two candidates go through to a run-off on May 7, where polls say Macron would easily beat Le Pen.
Traders cited the French election, as well as US relations with Syria and North Korea, as reasons why investors switched to safe assets, such as gold or US Treasuries, on Wednesday.
“Risk sentiment is not strong at the moment because of tensions in North Korea and also risk of a ... rising Melenchon,” said Nomura currency strategist Yujiro Goto in London.
Concern about a Le Pen victory, which would put further pressure on the EU after Britain’s decision to leave the bloc, led to an unusual foray into French politics by Germany, France’s traditional partner at the heart of the EU.
“We need a pro-European France,” German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said in Berlin.
With a bleed-the-rich video game and suggestions of a “Frexit,” French far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon is rattling financial markets by rising in polls just 11 days before the country’s presidential vote.
Melenchon’s surge is the latest surprise in a rollercoaster campaign that’s being closely watched around Europe and has featured a strong dose of anti-establishment populism.
Vote-getters
Most polling agencies still show that centrist Emmanuel Macron and far-right candidate Marine Le Pen are leading ahead of the April 23 first round presidential vote, with the top two vote-getters advancing to the May 7 presidential runoff. Yet Melenchon, once a distant fifth, has risen in recent polls to roughly third, about even with conservative presidential candidate Francois Fillon.
Melenchon’s sharp-tongued wit and eloquent anticapitalist rhetoric during the two presidential debates helped boost his standing among an electorate frustrated with France’s traditional left and right parties, which have failed to create jobs or pull the country out of its economic stagnation.
Promising to heavily tax the rich and renegotiate France’s role in the EU and trade pacts, Melenchon is also giving financial markets a new reason to worry. A possible French departure from the EU — a “Frexit” — would be devastating to the bloc.
Investors are growing more cautious ahead of the presidential election in the eurozone’s second-biggest economy. The difference between the 10-year bond yields of France and Germany has risen to its widest in six weeks, as investors flock to the perceived safety of German debt.
“With the growing threat of Euroskeptic parties destabilizing the eurozone’s unity weighing heavily on sentiment, the euro may be in store for further punishment,” Lukman Otunuga of FXTM said Wednesday.
Melenchon, 65, is an unlikely iconoclast. He spent decades in mainstream politics, serving in a Socialist government and in parliament. He now leads a far-left alliance that includes the Communist Party.
Yet Melenchon tapped into the populist zeitgeist — and the social media revolution — years ago.
An early Twitter user, he has mastered tweets targeting the world of finance. His YouTube channel — started for the 2012 presidential campaign, where he finished fourth — has garnered 21 million views. He’s using holograms to broadcast election rallies to multiple cities at once.
And his campaign has generated new attention in recent days thanks to a goofy online game called Fiscal Kombat created by his supporters. The player — represented by a rudimentary caricature of Melenchon — grabs leading politicians and shakes them until money falls from their pockets. The money, presumably stolen from the masses, can then be used to build a more egalitarian economy.