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Annick Girardin, France’s overseas territory minister, arrived in Mayotte Monday following weeks of protests across the Indian Ocean archipelago. But few believe Girardin can solve the chronic problems confronting Mayotte’s residents. Rubber tyres and tree trunks block roads in these tiny Indian Ocean islands, traffic slows to a crawl and protestors have been taking to the streets over the past three weeks in the French territory of Mayotte. Situated in the Gulf of Mozambique, between Madagascar and the coast of southeastern Africa, Mayotte has sun, sands and is ringed by a coral reef rich in marine life, all of which...

President Donald Trump’s former strategist Steve Bannon will address the party congress of France’s far-right National Front in Lille Saturday, the party announced on Twitter. Bannon, who had been working for Trump as chief strategist until August last year, is currently on a tour of Europe, during which he visited Italy for the climax of the country’s election campaign last weekend. The former executive chairman of the right-wing Breitbart News described the success of the 5-Star movement and the far-right League as an “earthquake” and Italy’s version of the Trump vote. …

I came here today to tell you there is a youth ready for this fight in Europe today.

Marine Le Pen's political awakening came at the age of eight, when she survived a bombing at her family's Paris home. Five kilograms of dynamite had been placed on the landing outside the apartment at 9 Villa Poirier. The explosion ripped open the entire front of the building. A baby in the next-door flat fell five floors and was saved by the branches of a tree. In her autobiography, the woman who took over the leadership of France's National Front (FN) from her father describes the chaos, the smoke and debris. She and her two sisters “were on our knees...

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has been placed under formal investigation over an alleged European parliament funding scandal. The allegations were passed to French investigators who have opened a case. The parliament suspects some €5m (£4m; $5.4m) went to assistants of Ms Le Pen's National Front (FN) who were not working for MEPs but were actually engaged in FN party work in France. The National Front has denied the allegations.

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen was attacked from all sides over Europe as presidential candidates went head to head in the second live TV debate. The centrist candidate Emmanuel Mscron said Ms. Le Pen's nationalist proposals amounted to "economic warfare"..... Ms. Le Pen, leader of the National Front Party, promised to restore control of France's borders and scrap the euro, or else hold a referendum on EU membership.... Ms. Le Pen, who also came under attack from conservative candidate Mr. Fillon, retorted: "You shouldn't pretend to be something new when you are speaking like fossils that are least 50...

An opinion poll suggesting far-right leader Marine Le Pen could win the first round of next year's presidential election has caused a shock in France.The survey for Le Parisien newspaper puts the National Front leader, who took over from her father Jean-Marie in January, ahead of all other candidates. It gives her 23% of the vote, 2% ahead of both President Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist leader Martine Aubry. However, some analysts question the accuracy of the online poll. Online surveys are arguably less reliable than telephone polling, and Le Parisien's poll assumes Ms Aubry will be chosen as the Socialists'...

French president Emmanuel Macron told a gathering of lawmakers on Monday that France was ready for a “radically new path” which would include “profound changes” including slashing the number of MPs and Senators by a third and ending the state of emergency. […] The Senate has 348 members, while the lower house National Assembly has 577 and Macron warned them he would call a referendum if they do not agree. Macron also said he planned to introduce a “dose of proportional representation” for the next parliamentary elections, “so that all tendencies are fairly represented (in parliament)”. That reform could enable...

Paris, France: Front National legislative candidate Aymeric Durox has revealed to Breitbart London the new name of the Front National could be "Les Patriotes", or the Patriots. Mr. Durox said the name change, which was talked about on Sunday evening following the defeat of anti-mass migration candidate Marine Le Pen, is likely to be Les Patriots citing the office of vice Florian Philippot registering the name in 2015.... The Front National, or perhaps soon Les Patriots, are challenging the establishment parties in next month's French legislative elections. Mr. Durox, who is standing in Paris, said all the establishment candidates he...

Far-right French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has announced that she is stepping aside as leader of the National Front (FN) party. The move comes just a day after she reached the second round of the French election, where she will face centrist Emmanuel Macron. Ms. Le Pen told French TV she needed to be above partisan considerations. She told France 2 that France was approaching a "decisive moment"..... Ms. Le Pen used her interview to launch a blistering attack on Mr. Macron, saying his policies would lead to savage globalization and massive immigration, and that he had not shown...

BREAKING NEWS: French Far-right Presidential Candidate Marine Le Pen Steps Down as Head of National Front in Bid to Woo Moderate Voters o The Front National leader quit as she made it to the second round of voting o She will face off against centrist Emmanuel Macron in the final vote on May 7 o President Hollande told voters Le Pen would ruin the economy if she is elected French far-right presidential hopeful Marine Le Pen has announced that she is temporarily stepping down as her party's leader. The Front National leader revealed she would be quitting her role in...

BREAKING NEWS: Shock waves through France as far-right Marine Le Pen makes it into the second round of nation’s presidential elections Marine Le Pen made it into the second round of nation’s presidential elections, according to exit polls She stormed into the final ballot in second place to face centrist independent Emmanuel Macron A polling station in Eastern France was forced to close as bomb squad was deployed to deal with a vehicle The worrying incident comes after a deadly ISIS gun attack on the Champs-Elysees in Paris on Thursday France’s far right National Front sent shock waves through Europe...

France, despite its reputation as a beacon of progressive liberalism, has been at the forefront of a burgeoning pan-European far-right movement. Marine Le Pen, an anti-immigration Eurosceptic who may well top the first round of France's presidential election on 23 April, is riding a populist insurgency that has been growing over the past 15 years. Its themes are familiar in the era of Donald Trump and Brexit: concern for hardworking people, support for traditional values, and opposition to immigration and supranational busybodies.

French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen canceled a meeting with a key Arab leader Tuesday after he insisted she wear a headscarf. The National Front leader who is a frontrunner for president was scheduled to meet with Lebanon’s grand mufti, an important cleric for Sunni Muslims, but backed out after it was made clear she was expected to cover her head, Reuters reports. “You can pass my respects to the grand mufti, but I will not cover myself up,” Le Pen told the press.

Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s far-right National Front Party, vowed that if she is elected the country’s president she would ban all public displays of religious symbols and clothing, including kippot. Le Pen made the statement during an interview on Sunday with France’s BFM-TV. She is expected to seek the country’s presidency in 2017. She heads the third-largest party in France. Le Pen is seeking to broaden an existing law, called the headscarf ban, that does not allow conspicuous displays of religious symbols in public schools to include all public areas. She called the ban a struggle against...

Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s far right National Front party, said in a magazine interview said that if she were American, she would vote for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. "If I was American I would vote for anyone but Hillary Clinton ... Between him and Hillary Clinton, it is clear that I would choose Donald Trump," Le Pen told the French magazine Valeurs Actuelles. "What appeals to Americans is that he is a man free from Wall Street, from markets and from financial lobbies and even from his own party," she said....

Europe's conservative, anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim tide is rising and spreading at an accelerating pace from nation to nation. First it was the unprecedented ascent and surge in the polls of France's National Front, whose Marine Le Pen has become the leading contender in next year's presidential elections; then there was Austria whose Freedom Party swept the competition in last weekend's first round of the local presidential elections; then over the weekend we learned that Germany's brand new (less than three years old) Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has not only adopted an "Anti-Islam manifesto", stating that "Muslims are no longer...

Police discover "bullets, Islamist propaganda and unauthorised madrassa" in raid after closure of mosque in Lagny-sur-Seine, outside Paris, in wake of Paris terror attacks.

Former US vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin has said she has a 'political crush' on Marion Marechal-Le Pen of France's National Front. Ms. Palin, writing for the conservative news website Breitbart, described the Frenchwoman as a 'clear voice of courage and common sense in a country and continent in need of both'. The young far-right candidate reminded her of Joan of Arc, she said. The FN failed to win control of any of France's regions in Sunday's elections....... Ms. Palin.......highlighted the acheivements of both Ms. Marechal-Le Pen and her aunt, FN leader Marine Le Pen. She praised the younger French politician...

Down but by no means out, the Front National may have failed to clinch a single region in France but it still has the wind in its sails after smashing its previous record in a national election. There is no denying that the result is a disappointment for Marine Le Pen, but her claim that “nothing can stop us” is more than mere hyperbole. The far-Right won 6.6 million votes on Sunday. That is almost 200,000 more than for leader Marine Le Pen in the 2012 presidential elections despite a far lower turnout this time – down 20 percentage...