By Yiming Woo
AVIGNON, France (Reuters) – The time has come to govern France differently, far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen told an election rally on Thursday, to frequent interruptions from an enthusiastic crowd chanting “We’re going to win!”
Just 10 days ahead of a runoff that will determine who will lead the European Union’s second-largest economy for the next five years, opinion polls show incumbent President Emmanuel Macron is slightly ahead of his far-right rival.
But the contest is very tight and could potentially go either way, making the crowd of several thousand in the southern city of Avignon appear confident as they chanted “Marine President!” and waved French flags.
“We’re proposing a truly alternative project,” Le Pen said. “This election pits the elite against the people,” she said, urging all voters to rally behind her to push out “a worn out system.”
“We are ready!,” she said, adding: “I tell abstentionists: come and vote. If the people vote, the people win.”
Le Pen, who was also a candidate in the past two presidential elections, is more popular than ever in France, opinion polls show, having successfully softened her image and pegged her campaign on cost of living woes.
She has not changed the core of her anti-immigration, eurosceptic far-right platform but is not focusing on that, unlike in her previous election bids.
Ahead of Le Pen’s speech, one supporter, Brigitte Bertrand, said she was voting for Le Pen for the third time and was more enthusiastic than ever. “I like her policies,” she said.
Le Pen has a strong following in parts of southern France, but plenty of detractors too.
In the historic city of Avignon, once the seat of the Catholic popes in the 14th century, retiree Paulette Chareyle, stayed well away from the rally. “I don’t like her ideas. I won’t vote for her,” Chareyle said, adding that Le Pen’s softer image was “a manipulation, to impose a very hard far-right.”
(Writing by Ingrid Melander; Editing by Susan Fenton)
