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Reuters
Reuters
Business
Layli Foroudi

Factbox-Far-right Le Pen cloaks nationalist policies with social veneer

FILE PHOTO: French far-right Rassemblement National (RN) party Member of Parliament and presidential candidate Marine Le Pen talks during the show "La France face a la guerre" (France in the Face of War) broadcasted on French TV channel TF1, in Saint-Denis, north of Paris, France, March 14, 2022. Ludovic Marin/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

Opinion polls point to the far-right's Marine Le Pen as the main challenger to President Emmanuel Macron's re-election, in a repeat of the 2017 match.

Le Pen has shifted her campaign focus to purchasing power, the number one priority for French voters, without shedding far-right policies from her election programme.

Here are her main policy proposals

ECONOMY

* No income tax for those aged under 30

* VAT on energy at 5.5% from current 20%. VAT at 0% for essential products such as pasta and diapers as long as inflation is one point higher than growth.

* No employer contributions on pay rises of up to 10%

* Early retirement at 60 for those who have worked 40 years. Increase low pensions

* Scrap inheritance tax for middle and low income families. No tax on donations of up to 100,000 euros per child or grandchild every ten years

IMMIGRATION

* Only French citizens will have access to welfare benefits

* French nationals will be given preference in access to social housing and to jobs

* Stop family reunification

* Systematically deport undocumented migrants, foreigners convicted of crimes

* Withdraw residency for migrants that are out of work for more than a year

* Remove birthright citizenship

* Asylum requests to be processed outside of France

SECURITY

* Re-establish mandatory sentencing and remove the possibility of reduced sentences

* Establish presumption of legitimate defense for security forces

ISLAM

* Strip French citizenship for people with extreme Islamist views

* Close mosques and Islamic associations that contradict French constitutional values

* Ban the hijab and religious symbols in all public spaces and for parents on school trips

EUROPE/INTERNATIONAL

* Withdraw France from NATO's military command structures

* For the French constitution to prevail over international law

* Create a "European Alliance of Nations" intended to progressively replace the European Union

* End Franco-German cooperation agreements established since 2017

ENERGY

* Stop wind turbine projects and dismantle existing ones

* Leave the European electricity market

* Invest in nuclear energy

(Reporting by Layli Foroudi; Editing by Ingrid Melander)

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