France election candidates report getting attacked on the campaign trail
Global News
Tensions are high as left-wing and moderate groups try to prevent the anti-immigration, nationalist National Rally from winning an historic absolute legislative majority.
In the final stretch before France’s high-stakes parliamentary elections Sunday, several candidates have reported being attacked on the campaign trail, including government spokesperson Prisca Thevenot.
The French interior minister said Thursday that 30,000 police officers will be deployed on voting day, including 5,000 in the Paris region. Tensions are high as left-wing and moderate groups try to prevent the anti-immigration, nationalist National Rally from winning an absolute legislative majority, which would be a first and a major historical shift for France.
Candidates have complained of both hate speech and physical violence in the brief and polarizing campaign for the snap elections.
Thevenot, a candidate for the centrist Ensemble alliance led by President Emmanuel Macron, said she and a deputy and a party activist were putting up election posters in Meudon near Paris on Wednesday night when a group attacked them. Thevenot’s deputy and the party activist were taken to a hospital.
“The symbolic violence of words quickly was replaced by physical violence,″ she told reporters while back on the campaign trail Thursday. ‘’We are still a bit shocked … I remain mobilized.”
She said the motive for the attack was being investigated. The prosecutor’s office said it opened an investigation into a gang assault with a weapon against a public official. Four people, including three minors, are in custody, prosecutors said.
Politicians on all sides condemned the attack and others on candidates from various parties.
Marie Dauchy, a National Rally candidate in Savoy, said she was assaulted Wednesday at a food market while campaigning and announced she was abandoning the race. Her party’s leader and three-time presidential candidate, Marine Le Pen, said on X that two men had “cowardly” assaulted Dauchy.