Le Pen says ‘non’ to Sarkozy

Marine Le Pen didn’t achieve quite the shock result in this year’s French presidential election that some thought she might when a few polls showed her ahead of Nicolas Sarkozy. But, even though she didn’t make it through to this weekend’s run-off, the National Front candidate did win 17.9 per cent of the first round vote. That means there are 6.4 million Le Pen voters for Sarkozy and Francois Hollande to fight over, putting her in a potentially very influential position. Sarkozy — currently trailing Hollande by six to ten points in the polls — has been particularly keen to court those voters, saying in a radio interview today, for example, that France has taken in too many immigrants. The current President might’ve hoped that Le Pen would advise her supporters to back him over his Socialist rival.