PARIS – French far-right candidate Marine Le Pen has made it to the second round of the presidential election and though she lags behind President Emmanuel Macron, polls show a much tighter race than in 2017 when he beat her convincingly.
Le Pen has shifted her campaign focus to purchasing power, the top priority for French voters, while working on softening her image. But the core of her party’s anti-immigration, far-right policies remains unchanged.
Here are her main policy proposals:
ECONOMY
* No income tax for those aged under 30
* VAT on energy at 5.5% from current 20%. VAT at 0% for essential products such as pasta and diapers as long as inflation is one point higher than growth
* No employer contributions on pay rises of up to 10%
* Early retirement at 60 for those who have worked 40 years
* Increase low pensions
* Scrap inheritance tax for middle and low income families. No tax on donations of up to 100,000 euros to a child or grandchild every ten years
IMMIGRATION
* Only French citizens will have access to welfare benefits
* French nationals will be given preference in access to social housing and to jobs
* Stop family reunification for immigrant families
* Deportation of undocumented migrants, foreigners convicted of crimes
* Withdraw residency for migrants that are out of work for more than a year
* Remove birthright citizenship
* Asylum requests to be processed outside of France
SECURITY
* Re-establish mandatory sentencing and remove the possibility of reduced sentences
* Establish presumption of legitimate defence for security forces
ISLAM
* Strip French citizenship from people with extreme Islamist views
* Close mosques and Islamic associations deemed to contradict French constitutional values
* Ban the hijab and religious symbols in all public spaces and for parents on school trips
EUROPE/INTERNATIONAL
* Withdraw France from NATO’s integrated command
* French constitution to prevail over international law
* Create a “European Alliance of Nations” intended to progressively replace the European Union
* End Franco-German cooperation agreements established since 2017
ENERGY
* Stop wind turbine projects and dismantle existing ones
* Leave the European electricity market
* Invest in nuclear energy
(Reporting by Layli Foroudi, Makini Brice and Ingrid Melander, Editing by Ros Russell)
