Le Pen attacks Macron as ‘candidate of continuity’

Paris, May 1 (IANS) Far-right French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen on Monday accused her pro-European Union (EU) centrist rival Emmanuel Macron of being the "candidate of continuity", the media reported.

She linked Macron to incumbent President, Francois Hollande, in whose cabinet he once served, the BBC reported.

She launched a full-throttled attack on Macron, calling him the candidate of "a morbid continuity, littered with the corpses of jobs transferred offshore, the ruins of bust businesses, and the gaping holes of deficit and debt".

"Emmanuel Macron is just Francois Hollande who wants to stay and who is hanging on to power like a barnacle," she told a rally in Villepinte, a suburb north of the capital.

Le Pen has capitalised on anti-EU feeling, and has promised a referendum on France's membership.

She has won support in rural and former industrial areas by promising to retake control of France's borders from the EU and slash immigration.

However, Le Pen trails Macron in the polls by about 20 percentage points ahead of Sunday's second round of voting.

Macron, who will holds a rally later on Monday, told the BBC the EU must reform or face the prospect of "Frexit" -- exit from the 27-member bloc.

France is on high alert as traditional May Day protests, on the left and the right, get under way.

Although five big unions have urged their members not to vote for National Front (FN) leader Le Pen, only two have expressed their support for Macron.