French presidential far-right candidate Marine Le Pen fought off accusations of plagiarism as supporters of her rival Emmanuel Macron warned that a high abstention rate could hurt his chances of victory
Presidential election candidate Marine Le Pen delivers a speech. Pic/AFP
French presidential far-right candidate Marine Le Pen fought off accusations of plagiarism as supporters of her rival Emmanuel Macron warned that a high abstention rate could hurt his chances of victory.
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It emerged that Le Pen had copied parts of a fiery speech she made yesterday from one made about two weeks earlier by one-time conservative candidate Francois Fillon, the former frontrunner, who was eliminated in the first round of the election.
In an address on April 15, Fillon made specific mention of the geography of France's borders, paid tribute to the French language and spoke of a third "French way" for the 21st century.
Analysis showed Le Pen repeated these passages almost verbatim from Fillon's speech.
However, Florian Philippot, the vice president of Le Pen's National Front (FN) party, claimed it was "not plagiarism", but "a nod to a short passage in a speech about France".
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