Marine Le Pen: No free school for foreigners in France

[Artturi]

Marine Le Pen: No free school for foreigners in France

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has called for an end to free education for foreign children.

In a speech in Paris, the National Front's candidate in the 2017 presidential race next spring said she had nothing against foreigners.

"But I tell them: if you come to our country don't expect to be taken care of, to be looked after, that your children will be educated without charge," she said.

"No more playtime," she added.

Ms Le Pen is widely expected to be one of two candidates to reach the second and final round of the election in May.

Latest opinion polls suggest she is running neck-and-neck in polling for the first round with the centre-right candidate Francois Fillon, who was selected in national primaries at the end of November. The Socialists will hold their own primaries next month.

However, around two-thirds of voters would choose Mr Fillon over Ms Le Pen in the deciding round.

Cutting immigration has long been a bedrock policy of the FN, and Ms Le Pen has campaigned hard to cut legal immigration dramatically to 10,000 a year and halt the right to family reunions.

Education has also been a central theme for the far-right leader. In 2014, she spoke out against providing substitute meals for pork dinners in schools for Muslims and Jews.

However under French law dating back to 1881, free primary education is a basic right for all children. The right to education is also a fundamental tenet of the European Convention on Human Rights.

[...]

But Ms Le Pen has had to respond to Mr Fillon's election as candidate by setting out distinctive policies.

On Wednesday, she accused him of being in hock to France's business organisation Medef, the European Commission, the banks and German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble.

In a live interview on Wednesday on one of France's main TV channels, TF1, she suggested she would put France back together in five years.

"I want to sort out the schools, France's diplomacy and the economy" she said, adding that she wanted a referendum on France's membership of the European Union.

[Blackthorne]

In a speech in Paris, the National Front's candidate in the 2017 presidential race next spring said she had nothing against foreigners.

Generally-speaking neither do I- provided that they remain in their own lands.