French presidential hopefuls Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen threw themselves into a final flurry of campaigning Friday, hoping to mobilize millions of hesitant voters before the weekend media blackout imposed for Sunday’s runoff election.
Both candidates fired off attacks in interviews before last-minute walkabouts and rallies, with Le Pen insisting that opinion polls giving Macron the lead would be proved wrong.
“Polls aren’t what decides an election,” Le Pen, who is hoping to become France’s first female president, said after posing for selfies in the northern Channel town of Etaples.
She again took aim at her rival’s plan to push back the retirement age to 65 from 62, a reform the president put on ice after fierce protests two years ago.
“With Emmanuel Macron, the French are going to get a life sentence,” she said Friday.
Macron for his part said Le Pen was trying to mask an authoritarian “extreme right” platform that stigmatizes Muslims with a plan to outlaw headscarves in public, and to “abandon the founding texts of our Europe… that protect individuals, human rights and freedoms”.
“Millions of our fellow citizens have moved toward her party and project because she gives the impression that she has an answer for the problem of purchasing power. But her answers aren’t viable,” he told France Inter radio.
Later in the day in Figeac in southern France, Macron told supporters that he expected them to “remain mobilized until the last second” because his victory was “not a done deal” even as the latest opinion polls predict his victory by a margin of 10 percentage points or more.
Le Pen meanwhile said that whatever the result of the election “I will have run the campaign that I wanted.”
Starting at midnight, neither candidate will be allowed to give interviews, distribute flyers or hold campaign events until 8:00 pm (1800 GMT) on Sunday, when initial estimates of results start coming in.
Publishing opinion polls will also be banned under the French campaign rules aimed at limiting last-minute interference in voters’ choices.
Source: AFP
