Centrist Emmanuel Macron and far-right leader Marine Le Pen will face off in the second round of the French election on May 7 — and people are in no doubt which side the Daily Mail is taking.
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‘A fascist supporting open sewer’: People are furious at the Daily Mail’s Marine Le Pen front page
Guardian columnist Owen Jones compared the paper to an 'open sewer.'
Marine Le Pen, French National Front (FN) political party leader and candidate for French 2017 presidential election, celebrates after early results in the first round of 2017 French presidential election, in Henin-Beaumont, France, April 23, 2017.
The British tabloid newspaper reacted to the results by plastering the words "The new French revolution" in all caps on Monday's front page.
It was accompanied by bullet points saying there had been a surge in the polls for the far right, that traditional parties had been "wiped out," and that French voters would now have a say in "Frexit" given Le Pen despises the EU.
The front-page has provoked some strong reaction on social media with many condemning the newspaper's apparent sympathies with a far-right party.
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Guardian columnist Owen Jones compared the paper to an "open sewer."
Others questioned the emphasis on Le Pen, even though Macron triumphed in Sunday's vote and is now favourite to become France's next president.
Some Twitter users compared the Daily Mail's front page to an infamous editorial entitled "Hurrah for the Blackshirts" written by the paper's publisher in 1934, which praised the German Nazi party.
Le Pen and her party are often likened to fascists due to their extreme anti-immigration, anti-Islam stances and the party's long history of anti-semitism.
A fringe party for decades, the Front National has emerged in the last few years as a leading force in French politics. For the first time since the 2002 elections — when Le Pen's father got to the second round of the presidential elections before being crushed by conservative Jacques Chirac — the party is now in the second round once again.
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Le Pen, the head of the anti-globalisation, anti-EU Front National and Macron the centrist pro-EU head of the En Marche! party he founded a year ago will now go head-to-head in the next two weeks before the second voting round, which will take place on Sunday, May 7.
So far, all polls are pointing to a landslide victory for Macron over Le Pen.
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