France's Marine Le Pen Steps Down As Leader Of Party

The far-right presidential candidate, Marine Le Pen, announced on Monday she was stepping aside as her National Front (FN) party's leader in a move seen as an attempt to reach out to a broader spectrum of voters ahead of the crucial May 7 run-off.



On Sunday, Le Pen reached the second round of the French election, where she will face the frontrunner centrist, Emmanuel Macron.



She set a new record for her National Front party with nearly eight million votes out of 37,003,546 ballots cast.



Macron passed ahead of the far-right candidate with 24.01 percent votes to Le Pen's 21.30 percent in Sunday's first round, according to complete results published by the Interior Ministry on Monday evening.



About her move to distance herself from the party, Le Pen told French broadcaster France 2: "This evening I decided to take my leave of the presidency of the National Front.



"Tonight, I am no longer the president of National Front. I will be above partisan considerations," she added.



Marine Le Pen is the daughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen, who co-founded the National Front party and was its leader from 1972 until 2011.



The 88-year-old was expelled from the party in August 2015 following a family feud with his daughter for his repeated inflammatory remarks about the Holocaust.



In November 2016, a French court upheld the decision, but ruled he should be allowed to remain the party's honorary president.



For Marine Le Pen, the answer to security, terrorism and economy issues is to block legal and illegal immigration, cease admitting refugees, say goodbye to the EU and reintroduce the franc.



The 48-year-old lawyer has vowed to hold a national referendum on leaving the EU and the Schengen border-free area within six months of her taking office.



Le Pen has repeatedly said she is against so called "Islamist globalization" and wants France to be a "true country" and not "a mere region of the European Union".



Surveys projecting a second-round clash between Macron and Le Pen have consistently shown the centrist candidate winning by a comfortable margin.



The first opinion poll published after Sunday's results showed Macron beating the far-right candidate in the second round by 61 percent to 39 percent.



The new president will be formally confirmed by mid-May.



The presidential poll is to be followed by a two-round legislative election to select the parliament in June. -