PARIS (AP) — Presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon used holograms to hold seven simultaneous rallies across France.
His actual body was at a rally in Dijon, while his image was projected by satellite to crowds in six other cities, including one on the island of La Reunion.
Melenchon, 65, has risen in polls ahead of the first round of France’s presidential election on Sunday, with some pollsters saying he has a chance of being one of two to reach the May 7 runoff. He leads a far-left alliance that includes the Communist Party.
Melenchon suggested his three main rivals — conservative Francois Fillon, far-right Marine Le Pen and centrist Emmanuel Macron — were potential targets after the arrest of two suspected radicals who were allegedly preparing a terror attack in France. He expressed his solidarity toward them.
“We will never make the gift to criminals to divide in front of them. We are not afraid”, he told the crowd.
In other news from the French campaign:
— Former president Nicolas Sarkozy expressed his support for conservative candidate Francois Fillon, to whom he lost in a November primary.
Fillon’s campaign has been damaged by accusations that he misused taxpayer money to pay his wife and children for government jobs that they allegedly did not perform.
French investigators are probing the case. Fillon denies wrongdoing.
— Centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron says he will simplify the country’s famously complex labor laws within weeks of taking office.
In comments at the Rungis wholesale market outside Paris, Macron says that it’s not a question of taking rights away from workers, but of lowering the 10-percent unemployment rate that has plagued France for years.
Macron, who has never held elected office, is running without the backing of an established party and claims to be neither of the right nor the left.
— Far right candidate Marine Le Pen is promising a freeze on long-term visas as soon as she takes office, followed by a tax on any company that hires foreign workers.
After the arrest of the two suspected radicals, she issued a statement blaming “Islamic fundamentalism” for “a devastating multiplication of attacks and threats of attacks” in France.
She said that “it’s time to put back France in order,” using one of her campaign’s mantras.
