Le Pen promises 15bn-euro pa immigration savings after TV debate
Far-right French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen on Thursday vowed to save 15 billion euros a year from the "cost of immigration", following the previous evening's TV debate in which she made several statements whose accuracy has been challenged.
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Asked to explain her economic programme on BFMTV, Le Pen said that she would make an annual saving of 15 billion euros a year - 75 billion euros over the course of a presidential term - through cutting immigration, which she plans to reduce to 10,000 people a year.
Variable figures
Le Pen's National Front (FN) has cited numerous figures for the cost of immigration over the years.
In 2012 Le Pen proposed savings of 8.2 billion euros a year, while last month FN Senator Stéphane Ravier put the annual cost of 70 billion euros, a figure cited by Le Pen herself in a radio interview in 2013.
Reporting Ravier's claim, business daily La Tribune quoted an OECD study and economists, warning of the difficulty of establishing a reliable figure but saying that in some years the contribution can be positive.
Total budget savings
In February this year Le Pen promised total budget savings of 60 billion over five years, although that rose to 96 billion in March, dropping to 80 billion at the beginning of April.
On Thursday morning she predicted savings of nine billion euros from France's "net contribution" to the European Union, two billion euros from opting out of the EU's rule on posted workers, 10 billion euros from reforms of local government, five billion euros from fighting crime and 15 billion euros from fighting VAT fraud and "tax fraud by multinationals".
EU figures contested
Several of Le Pen's assertions during Wednesday's debate have been found to be untrue, notably her claim that Macron was economy minister when phone service provider SFR was sold to the Numericable company.
Her figures for France's contribution to the EU have also come under the spotlight.
According to European parliament statistics, France contributed 4.5 billion euros to the EU budget in 2015, to which 1.6 billion in losses in customs and similar revenues could be added, making a total of 6.1 billion euros.
But, as Le Monde newspaper's factcheckers point out, that does not count other aspects of EU membership, most importantly access to the single market.
Macron also challenged Le Pen on her revised postion on withdrawal from the euro.
The FN candidate has said that France could restore the franc and keep the euro as a currency of international exchange, claiming that French companies paid their European counterparts in the ecu, a temporary common currency, while paying their employees in francs in the 1990s.
Macron challenged that assertion and factcheckers on Thursday found him to be correct.
To read our French presidential election 2017 coverage click here
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