News / France

French PM attacks far-right Le Pen over opportunistic remark

Friday, 21 April 2017 1:43 PM [ Last Update: Friday, 21 April 2017 1:43 PM ]

French Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve (Photo by AFP)

French Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve has accused far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen of seeking to use a recent deadly attack on Champs Elysees for political gain.

The deadly attack on Thursday on the famous avenue in Paris left a policeman dead and two others wounded. Daesh Takfiri terrorist group claimed responsibility for the attack.

Le Pen is "shamelessly exploiting fear and emotion for purely political ends," Cazeneuve said on Friday, adding, "She does [this] after every tragedy, to take advantage of it."

"After every drama, the National Front candidate seeks to profit ... She seeks, without shame, to exploit fear," he said.

Cazeneuve's strong criticism of Le Pen comes just two days ahead of the first round of France's presidential election.

A photo taken on April 21, 2017 shows a campaign poster of French presidential election candidate for the far-right Front National (FN) party Marine Le Pen, in Caestre, northern France, two days before the first round of election. (Photo by AFP)

Le Pen, believed to be one of the two candidates who will qualify for a decisive May 7 runoff, described government efforts to maintain law and order as "inept" and voiced security concerns over more terrorist attacks in the future.

In related news, Belgian Interior Minister Jan Jambon said the perpetrator was a French national.

"Yes, I can confirm that the guy who was yesterday, who did act, was not a Belgian, was a French. Now if there are any links with Belgian foreign fighters, something, it's under investigation for the moment by our federal parket (prosecutor's office), and the French," Jambon said on Friday.

Meanwhile, via its Amaq news agency, Daesh named the attacker as Abu Yousif, with the surname al-Belgiki, which in Arabic means "the Belgian."

Police, however, identified the attacker as a known convict named Karim Cheurfi.

Authorities seek a second suspect flagged by Belgian security services.

France has been in a state of emergency since a series of deadly attacks hit Paris in 2015.

In November that year, when Paris was hit by near simultaneous gun-and-bomb attacks on entertainment sites, two of the 10 known perpetrators were Belgian citizens and others lived in Belgium.

Despite numerous warnings, France and other Western countries, as well as their regional allies in the Middle East , have been giving support to anti-Damascus militants fighting to topple the Syrian government.

However, recent defeat and frustration in the Middle East war fronts have prompted the Europe-based militants to return home and turn against their European supporters.

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