San Francisco Frontiers - French far right targets immigration in European campaign launch

Introduced by National Rally (RN) figurehead Marine Le Pen as the party rides high in the polls, lead candidate Jordan Bardella also walked a line between blasting Brussels and vowing to turn the European Union to the party's own ends.

"It is quite clear that these European elections on June 9 represent a referendum against being inundated with migrants," Bardella, 28, told a crowd in Marseille that he said was 8,000 strong.

He highlighted the fact that the RN has brought on board Fabrice Leggeri, former chief of EU border agency Frontex, to loud cheers from supporters waving French flags.

"He joined the National Rally because he refused to let himself be pushed around" by Brussels, Bardella said.

Like Le Pen, he also addressed multiple declarations of love to farmers, who last month paralysed motorways and squeezed concessions out of Paris over issues like pay and environmental regulation before offering a hostile welcome to Macron at the capital's annual agricultural fair.

"The French farmers' battle isn't just a fight for a profession in particular... but for the entirety of a France that wants to preserve its identity, countryside, gastronomy, traditions," including against top-down rules decided at the EU level, Bardella said.

- Macron 'under siege' -

The young lead candidate is one of France's most popular politicians and leads a party credited with 28-30 percent support in polls ahead of the June vote.

Macron's alliance, by contrast, regularly polls below 20 percent after almost two years muddling through with no majority in the national parliament.

The June poll is seen as a key milestone ahead of France's next presidential election in 2027, when Le Pen is expected to mount a fourth bid for the top job and Macron cannot stand again due to term limits.

Le Pen said the president was "under siege", attacking centrist Macron on inflation, his unpopular pension reform last year and his recent suggestion that deployment of western troops to Ukraine could not be ruled out.

Macron "thinks he can find political salvation in warlike posturing that stunned the French public," she charged, to boos from the crowd.

While both blasted decisions made by European Union leaders, Bardella and Le Pen both explicitly dismissed talk they could ape Britain's departure from the bloc.

"Our Macronist opponents accuse us... of being in favour of a Frexit, of wanting to take power so as to leave the EU," Bardella said.

But citing EU nations where the RN's ideological stablemates are scoring political wins or in power, including Italy, Sweden, Hungary, the Netherlands and Austria, he added that "you don't leave the table when you're about to win the game".

G.Collins--SFF