French National Rally leader Marine Le Pen on Sunday launched her party’s campaign for the European Parliament elections, pledging to beat French President Emmanuel Macron’s party in the vote.
Le Pen presented the first 12 candidates on her list before a crowd of about 2,000 supporters in Paris.
“If Emmanuel Macron does not have the wisdom to change policies, if he does not have the wisdom to return to the people” by dissolving parliament for fresh elections, voters will express their discontent at the European elections, Le Pen said.
The European Parliament elections are to be held May 23 to May 26.
At the campaign launch, Le Pen criticized Macron’s response to the “yellow vests” demonstrations, which have seen hundreds of thousands of people protest since November last year against the president’s policies and leadership.
She accused Macron of “blindness” and “intransigence.”
Macron scored an easy victory over Le Pen in the second round of France’s May 2017 presidential election.
However, the “yellow vest” movement, which began as protests over high fuel taxes, has snowballed into a wholesale rejection of Macron and his policies, which are seen as favoring wealthy people at the expense of rural and small-town France.
Responding on Twitter to the speech, European Affairs Minister Nathalie Loiseau mentioned a financing scandal Le Pen is linked to, referring to the “embezzlement of public funds and fictitious jobs.”
“Le Pen invokes Christian values but violates the values of humanism. Let’s make sure next May is without them,” Loiseau wrote.
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