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France election: Leading candidates clash over burkini in TV debate | |
(about 1 hour later) | |
The two leading candidates in the French election have traded barbs in an occasionally fiery TV debate. | |
Far-right candidate Marine Le Pen and centrist Emanuel Macron clashed over the full-body "burkini" swimsuit worn by some Muslim women. | |
Ms Le Pen said France should oppose multiculturalism, but was accused by Mr Macron of making enemies of Muslims in the country. | |
Recent polls suggest Ms Le Pen will get the most votes in the first round. | |
But they also indicate that Mr Macron or scandal-hit centre-right candidate Francois Fillon would defeat her in a second round run off. | |
Read more on this story | Read more on this story |
In their opening remarks in the debate, Mr Macron said he would change the country's traditional political divisiveness, while Ms Le Pen said she wanted a France that was not a "vague region" of the EU or subservient to Chancellor Angela Merkel's Germany and later vowed to stop all immigration. | |
Mr Fillon said that if elected, he would be the president of what he called the "national recovery". | |
Also appearing in the debate - the first of its kind featuring the five leading candidates - are left-wingers Benoit Hamon and Jean-Luc Melenchon. | |
The BBC's Paris Correspondent Lucy Williamson says Mr Macron - who is 39 and has never fought an election before - has the most to lose in the debate. | |
He was keen to take on Ms Le Pen, arguing that the burkini was a "public order matter" and not a challenge to France's tradition of secularism as Ms Le Pen suggested. | |
Several southern French resorts banned the swimsuit last summer before France's highest administrative court found the ban breached fundamental freedoms. | |
Mr Macron also appeared to take a swipe at Mr Fillon. After accusing Ms Le Pen of defamation, he said justice would prevail as it would in the case of "certain presidential candidates". | |
That was an apparent reference to judicial investigation into allegations that Mr Fillon paid his wife hundreds of thousands of euros for parliamentary work she did not do. | |
Mr Fillon has denied the allegations and refused to quit the race, complaining he is the victim of a "political assassination". | |
Ms Le Pen, meanwhile, is hoping her debate performance will boost her chances of winning an eventual second round. | |
On the left, Mr Hamon is hoping to differentiate himself from Mr Melenchon, who wants to attract undecided voters, Le Parisien newspaper said. | |
Mr Hamon called for the introduction of a universal basic income, which he called the only innovative idea in the election campaign. | |
Voters go to the polls on 23 April. If none of the candidates wins more than 50% of the votes, the two with the highest will go into a second round to be held on 7 May. |