Le Pen Asks Melenchon Voters to Block `Dangerous' Rival Macron

(Bloomberg) -- National Front presidential candidate Marine Le Pen called on voters who backed far left Jean-Luc Melenchon in the first round of France’s election to block her centrist rival Emmanuel Macron.

“I am reaching out to the France Unbowed voters today to call on them to block Emmanuel Macron. His platform is at the opposite of what their party proposed,” Le Pen said in a video posted on her official Twitter account Friday. “It’s not possible to leave the leadership of France to Emmanuel Macron. The danger is too great,” she said calling Macron a “banker” who will just continue with the current Socialist government’s policies.

Though Le Pen’s party is rooted in Europe’s far right and Melenchon is a former Socialist backed by the Communist Party in the 2017 election, both want to re-write the rules of the European Union or pull out. Le Pen is now fighting to pick up some of his 7,1 million voters in the second-round vote on May 7. Melenchon has so far refused to give any indication of how he plans for in the runoff or advised his supporters what to do.

Thursday’s Ifop daily rolling poll showed 16 percent of Melenchon voters plan to vote for Le Pen, down from 19 percent on Monday. Those who plan to abstain have rise by 9 points to 39 percent plan to abstain, while 45 percent want to transfer their vote to Macron.

To win them over, Le Pen lavished praise on Melenchon. She said Melenchon’s campaign was “respectable and positive” a few hours after one of her top aides praise the 65-year-old life-long politician for being “noble” in not endorsing anyone.

To contact the reporter on this story: Helene Fouquet in Paris at hfouquet1@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alan Crawford at acrawford6@bloomberg.net, Geraldine Amiel at gamiel@bloomberg.net, Mark Deen