ARRESTED FOURPolice fired teargas and arrested four people after around 500 people demonstrated against Le Pen and tried to march towards the rally. Le Pen, 48, has spent years trying to grow support for the FN by campaigning on bread-and-butter issues, but in the final days of the race she has returned to its stock themes of immigration and national identity. HARD LEFTPolls show Le Pen, 39-year-old centrist Emmanuel Macron, conservative former prime minister Francois Fillon and hard left firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon locked in a tight four-way race ahead of Sunday's first round of voting. FINAL RUN-INJean-Yves Camus, an academic and expert on the FN, told AFP that Le Pen had returned to the "fundamentals, and particularly immigration" in the final run-in. FUTURE OF THE EUSome analysts have also depicted the French election as a sort of referendum on the European Union, with Le Pen proposing to a referendum on France's membership of the 28-country club and scrap the euro common currency.

Source: Daily Nation April 20, 2017 06:22 UTC