FRANCE:Jean-Marie Le Pen launched his fifth bid to become French president yesterday, promising to reintroduce the death penalty, reduce the criminal age to 10 and create a so-called National Guard.
The 78-year-old leader of France's Front National was on fighting form as he unveiled his "programme for government" to supporters in Lille.
His manifesto, described as a "response to the 20 major problems facing France", featured the expected anti-immigration, crime and nationalist measures, including pledges to end benefit payments to foreigners, create 75,000 more prison places and pull France out of Nato.
In his bullish address closing the two-day convention, Mr Le Pen accused one of his rivals of trying to deprive him of the necessary sponsors in what he described as a "particularly foul manoeuvre".
He is struggling to gain the 500 signatures of elected officials needed to stand for the presidential vote in two months. "A certain number of mayors who have signed are receiving phone calls from people trying to dissuade them," he said.
Last week the veteran politician dropped to fourth place in the opinion polls behind right-of-centre frontrunner Nicolas Sarkozy, socialist Ségolène Royal and centrist candidate François Bayrou.
Not surprisingly, Mr Le Pen dismissed the pollsters' findings; a response given a certain credibility by their failure to predict him winning his way into the second round of voting against Jacques Chirac in 2002.
Mr Le Pen, who referred to the Nazi gas chambers as "a point of detail", hit the headlines again recently when he dismissed the attacks in New York on September 11th, 2001, as an "incident". He remarked that the 3,000 death toll was equal to the number of people killed in Iraq in a month.
The latest opinion poll published yesterday claims Ms Royal has closed the gap with Mr Sarkozy, the interior minister, with both securing 28 per cent for the first round of voting at the end of April. It predicts that Mr Sarkozy will win the second vote by one point.
In the Ifop poll by Le Journal du Dimanche, Ms Royal rose 2.5 points, Mr Sarkozy dropped four points, Mr Bayrou rose one point to 17 per cent and Mr Le Pen rose half a point to 11.5 per cent. The poll came as a relief to Ms Royal who had seen her support plunge to 10 points below Mr Sarkozy.