Far-right leader and candidate for next spring presidential elections Marine le Pen rides a horse as she visits the annual Horse Fair in Villepinte, outside Paris, Friday, Dec. 2, 2016. France's President Francois Hollande announced in a surprise televised address Thursday that he would not seek a second term in next year's presidential election. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)
The Associated Press
PARIS (AP) - French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen says the spring election will pit nationalists and patriots like herself against those in favor of globalization, the European Union and immigration.
Speaking on Friday at an annual horse fair outside Paris - where she donned a cowboy hat and mounted a horse - Le Pen said Socialist President Francois Hollande's decision, announced the previous evening, not to seek a second term won't change her strategy.
She predicted that Prime Minister Manuel Valls will run instead as the Socialist presidential candidate, facing her and conservative former Prime Minister Francois Fillon, who won the right's primary.
She says "You know I don't believe in this left-right fracture. On the one side are nationalists, patriots. On the other, globalizationists, Europeanists and so, by definition, immigrationists."
Far-right leader and candidate for next spring presidential elections Marine le Pen pats a horse as she visits the annual Horse Fair in Villepinte, outside Paris, Friday, Dec. 2, 2016. France's President Francois Hollande announced in a surprise televised address Thursday that he would not seek a second term in next year's presidential election. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)
The Associated Press
Far-right leader and candidate for next spring presidential elections Marine le Pen rides a horse as she visits the annual Horse Fair in Villepinte, outside Paris, Friday, Dec. 2, 2016. France's President Francois Hollande announced in a surprise televised address Thursday that he would not seek a second term in next year's presidential election. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)
The Associated Press