At Meat Market, Marine Le Pen Backs ‘Eating French’

PARIS (AP) — French right wing presidential contender Marine Le Pen has called for more food to be produced and consumed in the country known as the gastronomic center of the Western world.

Le Pen, visiting the Rungis wholesale market outside Paris on Tuesday, said the French government must promote meat from France.

“Let’s promote the ‘eating French’ especially in (school) canteens where our children must take advantage of healthy, quality products,” she said.

Le Pen was booed by some workers in the fruits and vegetables section.

The National Front leader is facing pro-European centrist Emmanuel Macron in France’s May 7 presidential runoff.

But even presidential candidates sometimes have to face criticism from the family.

Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie, told France Inter radio Tuesday that he thinks his daughter has produced a “too laid-back” campaign. He said in her position, he would have done a “Trump-style” campaign that would have been “very aggressive against those who are responsible for the country’s decadency.”

He still supports her candidacy in the presidential runoff.

Jean-Marie Le Pen, who repeatedly has been convicted of crimes based on anti-Semitism and racism, founded the National Front party that his daughter now leads but the two have had strong political disagreements at times.

In 2015, his daughter pushed him out of the party because he had refused to desist from anti-Semitic provocations that were undermining both her bid to become French president and her bid to make the National Front an acceptable political alternative.