France’s socialist prime minister warned disillusioned voters they were on track to hand the presidency to Marine Le Pen, the National Front leader, in two years.
“I fear for my country,” said Manuel Valls. “I am afraid that it will shatter itself against the National Front. Their manifesto, to leave the euro, to leave the common agricultural policy, is a disaster for the country.” His outburst is designed to shock voters, especially leftwingers unhappy with President Hollande’s leadership, into turning out to block the seemingly inexorable march of Ms Le Pen.
France votes in local elections this month with polls showing Ms Le Pen’s anti-immigrant, anti-EU party with 30 per cent, ten points ahead of President Hollande’s socialists and three in front of Nicolas Sarkozy’s conservatives. Mr Valls warned that Ms Le Pen now stood on the threshold of the presidency in 2017.
The daughter of the National Front’s founder has shed much of her pariah status and is leading the field in polls on voting intentions.
She has been mocking what she sees as the obsession with her in both Mr Hollande and Mr Sarkozy’s camps. “The National Front has become the obsessive compulsive disorder of the French political world,” she said.