France’s Le Pen refuses headscarf to meet Lebanon’s mufti

The leading candidate in the French presidential election has told the British Prime Minister that the United Kingdom should not receive preferential treatment from the European Union after Brexit.

Addressing more than 2,000 French citizens and others at the Methodist Central Hall, opposite the Houses of Parliament, Macron said he wanted to convince them to return and “innovate, seek, teach”.

The French government has been wooing London-based financial companies, but the United Kingdom government has promised to fight to maintain the City’s position.

“I pointed out on Monday that I would not cover myself up”.

Mr Hollande told a conference in Paris: “I call on the United Kingdom to shoulder its responsibilities concerning adolescents today in France now who have families across the Channel. I had a job, it seems bad”, he joked.

Talking of Brexit, Macron said: “We all have a lot of responsibilities because it is the future of Europe at stake and also the future of the Franco-British relationship, which is structured not just on economic and financial subjects but also defense, internal security and immigration”.

Fillon, a 62-year-old former prime minister, has made gestures to both conservative and moderate voters in the past days with intense campaigning to ram home his credentials on security while dialing back his plan to cut health care spending.

Earlier on Tuesday Macron met with May, saying he wants London bankers and academics to move to France after Brexit.

And the centrist candidate – who created his own En Marche!

The leader of the French National party Marine Le Pen. Reminded again on arriving at his Beirut headquarters, she refused and left.

Opinion polls say Ms Le Pen is likely to get the highest score in the first round of voting in April but will then lose to a mainstream candidate in the decisive second round vote in May.

Center right contender Francois Fillon is also facing allegations over claims that he paid his British wife almost €830,000 as a parliamentary assistant for more than a decade, and also paid his two eldest children a total of €84,000 as assistants while he was a senator.

Le Pen has denied any wrongdoing, arguing that the allegedly fictional job contract was submitted as part of an accounting adjustment.

The Prime Minister met with the French candidate at No 10 today – as he visited London to try and woo some of the 300,000 expats in the UK. “We had a very substantial talk”, Le Pen told reporters.

“It looks on the face of it like a media operation whose goal is to disturb the course of the presidential campaign”, the National Front said in a statement.