Presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has announced that she will step down as leader of her FN
Far-right French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has announced that she will step down as leader of her National Front (FN) party.
The move comes just a day after she reached the second round of the French election, where she will face Centrist Emmanuel Macron.
“This evening I decided to take my leave of the presidency of the National Front,” she told TV channel France 2.
“I will be above partisan considerations.”
It is not clear if her decision will be permanent. She told France 2 that France is approaching a “decisive moment”.
Ms Le Pen took over the FN leadership from her father in January 2011 and helped her party secure big gains in regional elections.
She won 7.6 million votes on Sunday – the strongest ever result for a FN candidate, and 2.8 million more than her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, won in 2002.
Her party wants to slash immigration, clamp down on free trade, and overturn France’s relationship with Europe.
Her campaign has called for:
Negotiation with Brussels on a new EU, followed by a referendum
“Automatic” expulsion of illegal immigrants and legal immigration cut to 10,000 per year following an immediate total moratorium
“Extremist” mosques closed and priority to French nationals in social housing
Retirement age fixed at 60 and 35-hour week assured
Ms Le Pen’s rival, former French economy minister Emmanuel Macron, is widely expected to win the run-off vote on 7 May.
His party, En Marche, adopts a liberal, pro-EU agenda. The 39-year-old has never stood for election before, and if he wins would become France’s youngest-ever president.
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