Yesterday in France’s presidential race
PARIS, France (AFP) — A little over two weeks before the first round of France’s presidential election, far-right candidate Marine Le Pen reacted to the US strikes in Syria and her far-left rival Jean-Luc Melenchon took a stab at playing a virtual Robin Hood.
Here are three things that happened in the campaign yesterday:
Le Pen ‘surprised’ by Syria strikes
Le Pen, who praised Donald Trump’s isolationist stance when he was campaigning for the US presidency last year, said she was “surprised” by his decision to order air strikes in Syria in response to Tuesday’s suspected chemical attack there.
“I’m a little surprised because Trump had indicated repeatedly that he did not intend for the United States to be the policeman of the world anymore, and that’s exactly what he did yesterday,” the National Front (FN) leader said on French television.
Fillon flour-bombing suspect was on extremist watchlist
One of two men arrested after conservative candidate Francois Fillon was blanketed with flour at a campaign event was on a watchlist of suspected radical extremists, a police source told
AFP.
He was on the list because he travelled to “sensitive countries like Afghanistan”, but was not known to have been radicalised, the source said, adding that the man was no longer on the list.
Fillon, once the frontrunner for the presidency, has been dogged by a fake jobs scandal since January and has been charged with abuse of public funds.
Melenchon stars in corruption-busting video game
Far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon launched his own video game, playing a modern-day Robin Hood recovering wealth stolen by the elite and giving it to the people.
Players put themselves in Melenchon’s shoes in ‘Fiscal Kombat’, setting out to recover 279 billion euros (US$196 billion) — the candidate’s proposed budget — from the likes of Bernard Cahuzac, the former Socialist budget minister convicted of tax fraud and money laundering.
The game also targets Fillon as well as former right-wing president Nicolas Sarkozy, who has faced a number of legal probes into corruption and campaign financing violations since he left office in 2012.
