France far-right leader: All Paris meat is halal

LILLE, France?? French far right leader Marine Le Pen switched her presidential campaign back to immigration, claiming all meat in Paris was halal, as she tries to head off President Nicolas Sarkozy's attempts to lure her supporters.

At a weekend congress of her National Front party in the northern city of Lille, Le Pen returned to familiar anti-immigration territory, saying she had proof that all meat in Paris was halal and that she would lodge legal complaints against distributors for misleading consumers.

"This situation is a real deception and the government has been fully aware of this situation for months," Le Pen told reporters on the sidelines of the conference. "All the abattoirs in the Paris region sell halal meat without exception."

Exploiting discontent over globalization and the debt crisis in Europe, Le Pen had sought to attract voters by shifting from a traditional emphasis on immigration and French identity to leaving the euro and imposing protectionist barriers.

Her stance struck a chord, especially among working class voters suffering economic hardship since the start of the global financial crisis. Le Pen stands third in polls behind Socialist candidate Francois Hollande and Sarkozy with two months to go before the first round of the presidential vote on April 22.

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But most analysts deem her economic program as not credible and have questioned the strategy of shifting from the party's core message. Criticism of her economic policies has provided an opportunity for conservative Sarkozy to poach far-right voters as he did in 2007 when he ran on a strong security and immigration platform.

"Nicolas Sarkozy is trying to renew 2007 by encroaching on our turf," Nicolas Bay, Le Pen's adviser on immigration issues, told Reuters. "That means we have to go on the offensive as we have no intention of letting him do it again."

At one point in January, Le Pen was snapping at the conservative leader's heels, but a BVA poll Friday showed Sarkozy had an 11 point lead over her in the first round of the election, although Hollande would still comfortably beat the incumbent in the May 6 runoff.

Le Pen's National Front, founded 40 years ago by her ex-paratrooper father Jean-Marie, is still fuelled by anti-immigrant rhetoric. Among her ideas for protecting welfare are toughening citizenship requirements, shutting borders and forbidding foreigners from access to any social aid.

Bay said it was important that issues such as the halal claim were made public to show how Muslim values were increasingly influencing local policy and endangering France's secular tradition.

Sarkozy's government has toughened its message on immigration and in January it trumpeted the deportation of a record number of illegal migrants in 2011.

Copyright 2012 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46445838/ns/world_news-europe/

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