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French presidential election 2012

Bardot backs far-right leader Le Pen's attempt to stand for president

French former film star Brigitte Bardot has backed far-right leader Marine Le Pen’s efforts to stand for president, a day after France’s Constitutional Council ruled against an appeal by the Front National (FN) chief on pre-poll procedure.

Reuters/Vincent Kessler
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Would-be presidential candidates have to collect the signatures of 500 elected officials, usually mayors, who think they should be allowed to stand.

The deadline is 16 March and Le Pen said Wednesday that she has only been able to collect about 430 signatures.

She has accused the major parties of bullying mayors into not signing her papers and appealed to the Constitutional Council to allow the signatures to be kept secret.

Le Pen slammed the decision Tuesday, declaring that there was “no more democratic practise” in France.

She later told a radio interviewer that she had been forced to cancel campaign events, including a trip to the French West Indies, for lack of finance because banks would not grant her loans until she had the necessary number of signatures.

Bardot entered the fray on Wednesday with a call to mayors to sponsor Le Pen.

The former film star, who is now an animal rights campaigner, said they should do so because Le Pen “defends animals and has the courage to strength to restore our country, France, to the place that ought to occupy in the world”.

Bardot has been found guilty of incitement to racial hatred on five occasions.

Marine Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie, who preceded her as the party’s leader and presidential candidate, also complained that he had difficulty collecting signatures. He obtained 533 in 2002 and 507 in 2007.

Le Pen has refused to debate with hard-left presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon on a television programme Thursday.

She accused the state-owned France 2 channel of “dishonouring the public service” for “wanting to force her” to debate with the Left Front candidate, claiming that he had insulted her in public on several occasions.

An FN communiqué claims that Mélenchon has called Le Pen “a bat”, “a barbarian”, “half-demented”, “fascist” and two different French words for stupid.

France 2 replied that the choice of participants in a debate are its own editorial choice and that it has never asked politicians if they accept an adversary.

Marine Le Pen “wants to be president of the republic but runs away as soon as she faces the slightest contradiction”, the Left Front declared on hearing the news.

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