Black-clad attackers beat a right-wing candidate during campaigning ahead of France’s parliamentary election, police said, repeating violence against politicians in Germany and elsewhere in Europe as the political atmosphere grows harsher.
Hervé Breuil, candidate for Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) party, was attacked while campaigning in the industrial city of Saint-Etiénne, near Lyon, in central France.
His attackers wore black clothing and masks, police and local authority spokespeople said. He was hospitalized after the attack but is expected to be discharged soon, they added.
Attacks against political figures – most of them mayors and councilors – have increased in France.
2,387 physical and verbal attacks were recorded in the first nine months of 2023, compared to 2,265 in all of 2022, when cases of violence increased by a third compared to 2021, according to the latest data from the Ministry of the Interior.
Le Pen blamed what she called “left-wing extremists” for the attack on Breuil.
“An election campaign in a democracy cannot allow such acts of extreme violence to be carried out by an extreme left that is prepared to do anything to sow chaos,” Le Pen said on the social network X (formerly Twitter). Police have opened an investigation into the incident.
French President Emmanuel Macron called the early election after his party was defeated by the RN in the European Parliament elections.
The right-wing party leads polls ahead of the vote, ahead of the left-wing coalition New Popular Front. The election will be held in two rounds, on June 30th and July 7th.