French riot police clash with youths protesting election

Former right-wing president Nicolas Sarkozy said he would vote for Mr Macron in order to prevent Ms Le Pen from winning.

Le Pen appeals to those who have been hurt by free trade agreements or automation. Higher rates would make it easier in some cases to save for retirements or fund a pension plan, and would make bonds and bank time deposits more attractive compared to stocks.

Like Trump, Le Pen has risen on populist politics rooted in anger over immigration policies, globalization and middle class economic disenfranchisement.

This new political climate has helped Le Pen overcome the long-standing French distaste for the neo-fascist origins of her National Front Party. Pollster Edouard Le Cerf says everybody knows the second round is not about voting for who you want.

She has campaigned fiercely since she and Macron qualified Sunday for the runoff, while Macron was accused of a laggardly start to his second-round efforts but has stepped up the pace over the past 24 hours.

Le Pen has said all along that among the 11 first-round candidates, she wanted to face Macron in round two.

Tajani said that a procedure was also launched over lifting the immunity of another member of the National Front, Marie-Christine Boutonnet, for a similar case of alleged misuse of European Union funds. In the first round, they won less than half of the votes between them and have fewer than 10 days to convince the other 55 percent.

He has stopped short of joining the “anti-Le Pen bloc” and supporting a vote for the centrist candidate.

“If I was old enough to vote, I’d have to do it wearing gloves”, he added.

Acknowledging that plans to leave the European Union were “most worrying” for voters, Rivière said Le Pen refrained from mentioning plans to return to a national currency on objective.

She said she wanted to replace the “grey” European Union with a “happy” one and omitted any mention of her anti-euro stance.

“His program is oligarchic, globalist, individualistic, immigrationist”, she said to a cheering crowd of 4,000. But the far left leaning communist candidate, Jean-Luc Melenchon, who had looked like he may also reach the final two, which really spooked the markets, has so far not endorsed either candidate. Le Pen’s selfie-snapping populism against Macron’s refusal to simply tell the workers what they so desperately wanted to hear: that their jobs can be saved as Whirlpool shifts production to Poland.

“Macron’s election would accelerate France’s submersion under a wave of migration”, she said.

Yesterday, students demonstrating against both candidates clashed with police in Paris, hurled bottles at the officers who responded with tear gas.

The amicable meeting turned ugly when Le Pen showed up for a surprise visit to the factory to take photos with striking workers. Le Pen’s chief of staff and another party official have been charged with concealment, and a French prosecutor is investigating the activities of the far-right party on the afore-mentioned regional council in northern France, according to a statement made on Tuesday by a judicial source. Inhabitants of the Mediterranean city largely backed former conservative Prime Minister François Fillon in the election’s first round.

Far-right French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, left, is greeted by workers outside a whirlpool home appliance factory in Amiens, France, Wednesday April 26, 2017.

Macron later went to the site himself and, although he held his ground and the tension eventually eased, television channels repeatedly broadcast footage of him being heckled.