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Masked attackers attacked a far-right candidate on the campaign trail ahead of France’s snap parliamentary elections in the latest incident of violence targeting politicians Europe.
Police said Herve Broy, a candidate for Marine Le Pen’s National Unity (RN) party, was attacked while handing out leaflets on Thursday morning with four others in the industrial town of Saint-Etienne, in central France.
Although an investigation has been launched to clarify what happened, the local media witnesses cited by the RN who said the group was insulted and pushed around. The prosecutor said French TV station TF1 that Broyle was kicked, while a police source said rotten fruit was thrown at the group.
His attackers were dressed in black and had masks on their faces, police and local government spokesmen said. Broyle, 68, who wears a pacemaker, was hospitalized after the attack but was due to be discharged soon, they added.
The attack comes weeks after Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico, survivor of an assassination attempt this prompted warnings across Europe of increasing political violence. In Germany, where three elected officials were assaulted in less than a week, leaders linked the violence to an increasingly heated and polarized political atmosphere.
in Francethe number of attacks on political figures, many of them mayors and local councillors, has risen steadily in recent years.
In the first nine months of 2023, there were 2,387 physical and verbal attacks on politicians, compared with 2,265 for all of 2022, when incidents increased by a third compared to 2021, according to the country’s interior ministry.
As news of Broyle’s attack broke, candidates across the political spectrum condemned the attack on social media. Andre Taurina, a candidate from the leftist France Inflexible (LFI), who campaigned in the same district as Broy said to X that in her party “physical violence in politics is forbidden. We would never attack any candidate.
Officials said the attack on Broy remained under investigation, but Le Pen quickly linked the incident to what she described as “far-left extremists”.
Social Media Writing, she added: “An election campaign in a democracy cannot be allowed to have such acts of extreme violence perpetrated by an extreme left that is willing to do anything to sow chaos.”
With just over a week to go before voting begins in France’s parliamentary elections, Le Pen’s far-right anti-immigrant party is leading in the polls. While the far right is expected to proved insufficient by a majority, the prospect of a government led by the far right saw hundreds of thousands of people I go out into the street across the country, in a show of opposition to the RN firm position on immigration, Islam, etc LGBTQ+ community.
Reuters contributed to this report
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