marine le pen was, and jean marie le pen before, was for this cooperation with russia. sia wanted to use marine le pen to legitimise their annexation of crimea. we know this because hackers published a text exchange apparently from the phone of a kremlin official to russian mp. i have the text messages here. we can see on the 17th of march they say, marine le pen has officially recognise the results of the crimea referendum. that comes the answer, she hasn't disappointed us with a smiley face. and then, we need to find some way of demonstrating our respect to the french. that's important. what did they mean by that? i contacted the russian mp in the text exchange. at first he agreed to speak to me. but then, he stopped answering his phone. there were two loans totalling 11 million euros. one from that bank with links to the kremlin, the other through an oligarch accused of helping to finance russia's war in eastern ukraine. for me there is no doubt that was authorised by kremlin. a special operation and special recommendation and request of those businesspeople to help m

jean marie le pen was the face of post-european fascism. he was also expelled from his own party, from the party that he founded. he was fced out of the national front by marine le pen, by his daughter, after she took it over from him. then today after she made the runoff for the presidential election, marine le pen also dropped out of the party. she runs the national front. she dropped her own affiliation with the party her father founded and she has helmed ever since. she's trying to get elected president of france, so she's dropped her political party entirely because it's bad baggage. but her making it to the runoff and potentially being the next president of france, this isn't totally untrod ground. her father made it this far in national politics in that country once before. in 2002, in france's first election after 9/11 in 2002, france scared itself to death because jean marie le pen defeated one of the candidates from the mainstream political parties and made it into the presidential runoff himself. and that was seen as the equivalen

you representm isa worried about what you representm is a psychological weapon. john marino —— jean—marie lee pen said the holocaust was a detail of the second world war. you should ask winston churchill. do you think it was a detail of the second world war? he didn't say anything about it. a detail doesn't mean that it is significant, it was part of world war ii. jean—marie le pen has been a member of parliament for nearly 60 yea rs member of parliament for nearly 60 years and his positions, speeches, programmes, proposals over several tens of thousands of pages, so it is really... you cannot summarise his life to this sentence. people try to find things from marine le pen that they can use but it is the usual game. you have two weeks to convince people, what will be the strategy? will you try to paint emmanuel macron as the establishment, continuity candidate? on one side we will because he is not that much a newcomer. he was the economic adviser for francois hollande, newcomer. he was the economic adviserfor francois hollande, the minister for economic, adviserfor francois hollande, the m

that was jean marie le pen. marine le pen's father.off against jacques chirac. 82%, and le pen, 18%. that's why the market is confident something similar will happen this time. but in the first round, turnout was low, 71%. and this time, 82%. and jean marie le pen got 16%. marine le pen's chances are better than her father's in 2002. and there are important runoff differences. most notably, le pen is far right. macron is center left. and a big party with a big base, lots of support. buckling together various coalitions. and macron is an independent. he has his 23% so far. but can he grab other coalitions? clearly, the market is taking confidence from that, expecting various other parties to vote for macron. but jean-luc melenchon has not endorsed macron. mr. fillon has. last night, i was at his campaign headquarters. and i asked some voters who they would now vote for, given that their candidate, mr. fillon is not there? >> well, tonight, i will probably not vote at all. in two weeks. >> i am going to vote for macron in two weeks becau

——jean marie le pen. it is a bit different, now. treme difficult her to gather and to rally voters around her. because the reality of french politics is such that the voters usually unite and try to block a far—right vote in the run—off. try to block a far—right vote in the run-off. ok, thomas. we will have two watch and wait. thomas fessy there in paris. you're watching newsday on the bbc. live from singapore in london. still to come on the programme: forget about faster, higher, stronger. what about older, tougher? stay with us to see these asian performers. —— aged. the stars and stripes at half—mast outside columbine high. the school sealed off, the bodies of the dead still inside. i never thought they would actually go through with it. some places have already had nearly as much rain as they would normally expect in an entire year. for millions of americans, the death of richard nixon —— for millions of americans, the death of richard nixon in a new york hospital has meant conflicting emotions. a national day of mourning next we

jean marie le pen. the two no longer speak. she's more aligned with her niece, the also highly polarizing politician, marion marchel le pen, who we interviewed last year in paris. marion marchel le pen: i would remind you that france is europe's leading exporter of isis soldiers, which underlines a malaise. don't bury your head in the sand. the areas with the higher immigration rates are the areas with the strongest insecurities. this immigration policy has failed. scott: the recent spate of terror attacks in paris and across europe, and the sometimes chaotic environment brought by an influx of refugees, has created a perfect storm from which le pen so eloquently strikes a chord with the fed up french voters. marine le pen: the democratic uprising of people is happening, in the u.s. and great britain and italy, in india, and eventually, everywhere in the world. patriots are speaking the same language. scott: she promotes the idea of closed borders. you think that's a good idea? >> many problems with borders because many immigran

we have seen that in 2002, when her father, jean—marie le pen, made it to the run—off against jacqueser emmanuel macron can get as many votes as he can from the left and the right, against the front national, remains to be seen. marine le pen is a lot stronger than her father was 15 years ago. and a lot of people are saying that he is all talk but no policies that is the main challenge —— and that is in charge of his campaign before the run—off. charge of his campaign before the run-off. there is a lot of talk tomorrow about this being a new kind of politics from both politicians, both outsiders, that kind of thing. yet both of them, because they do not have a huge parliamentary backing in the parliament, i'm going to have a which will have to rely on some of the established parties to get anything done. —— are going to have a coalition. it is an exceptional situation we're in. on one hand, we have traditional parties in the presidential election, a first time in decades year that the main parties have been governing france since the 1950s and are out of the race. another hand, whethe

chris moore have been following the far left candidate jean-marie le pen. with the terror attack. he have say? >> he is not somebody that puts security at the center of his cane but at the same time, he's ot scared to talk tough on terrorism. we were watching his meeting and speaking live. and offering what he describes is solidarity for those who may or may not have been threaten birthday by that alleged planned attack and saying in the wake is yes, he does believe security forces need to be given rain showers but also the way to deal with this is to carry on with their normal lives. as far as we know, he's one of the few candidates to have kept up the events that he was planning for this evening. -- there is a re-dinner with the leader here in paris. as far as we know, that's not been canceled yet. >> now he's certainly had some bouts in the course of the last few weeks, hasn't he, in terms of the polls. how do you explain that? >> things are always going to be tight on the left. you've got emmanuel macron who has put himself on the center left and right

le pen senior, jean marie was what used to be called the-- a follower of the vichy regime, admirer of it, open admirer of it, that is what the roots of this party are, there is no denying it. she has tried to sanitize it a good deal. >> rose: but the advertisers. >> you can't sanitize it completely. and though the core, the kruks of the ideology now tends to be anti-islam, anti-muslim rather than anti-semitic as a french friend said to me not long ago, you have to always remember that hating mugs limbs is a recreation for such people and hating shoes is a religion. so i don't think that you can rule out the anti-cementic or pretend it is not a ang strong anti-semitic element here too. these are scary people, the old french far right who collaborated and were part of vichy. there is no putting a pretty face on it. what marine le pen stands for is the worst. >> rose: sophie, is there some sense, anywhere in this election, and maybe very much so, that france looks at the world and we know if you follow it closely that there are a lot of very smart technologies that have been developed in

there was an election back in 2002 in france when jean-marie le pen, her father, got to the second round and only ended up with 18% of vote. jean chirac was president and he could almost disregard that sentiment. if marine le pen gets to 40% of the vote in the second round and still loses, that's a substantial part and a substantial voice for this sort of anti-globalist, anti-eu, anti-big business sentiment in france. that could shape the way not just macron would rule if he was president but also the legislative elections that are very important for dictating policy in france. you've seen a similar thing in the uk where prime minister theresa may was pretty -- she was actually against brexit, but she kept herself out of the referendum, but she was thought to be against brexit but she's had to go for a hard brexit which means cutting off immigration, pulling the u kurks out of the single market. she's reacting to the prevailing political conditions in the uk and the rise of populist feelings and anti-european feelings. that's a way in which you can see how even when populists don't win,

in the first round the difference then was turnout was lower and jean marie le pen only got 16%.20% and a higher turnout so a more conventiincing first round performance. jack chirac was a fellow right-leaning politician and easier for him to get the center ground and a member of the republican party with a big base of support. mr. macron doesn't really have that. clearly there's confidence off the back of these historic uniting against the national front, but there are differences too. clearly the markets focusing on the former rather than the latter this morning. >> who framed your shot? i mean you're right in the thing. i mean there's -- it's like -- it's unbelievable. you love that, don't you? you are feeling so cosmo right now. look at that. have you been up to the top? there's a big line to get to the top of that thing. have you done that? >> reporter: i'm feeling so lucky, joe. it's a great job. very lucky to be here. >> and you're on "squawk box." you should be feeling lucky. where are we putting you up in paris just out of curiosity? no, you know what, the place will get

in that second round vote, chirac got 82% against jean marie le pen who got just 18% of the vote.he thought is in the second round, voters unite against the outside candidate. indeed the polls this time around show a big gap. more like 60-40 to macron than 80-20. but an uphill battle for marine le pen. but things are different. in the first round the vote was much closer and more candidates at play. therefore, key in the second round is what happens to the roughly 40% of voters who opted for the far right or the center right francois fitton. he was come to come out loud and clear and back macron in the second round and encouraging his voters to do the same. melench melenchon, the leader of the far left party has not done that, even though in 2002 he did come out and back jacques chirac. to dive into that deeper let's look at how working class voters here voted yesterday. le pen won and by a much bigger margin than people expected. 37%. macron just 16% of the working class. melenchon in between the two as you can see. that's 24%. which way it goes will be key for this election. but

then you have marie le pen and jean-luc melenchon, talking about withdrawing from the bloc, putting up border controls, and pretty much moving back into sort of very nationalist agenda. what happens in sunday's vote will pretty much decide whether the european union continues to exist as we know it or moves in a radically different direction that could be the dismantling and the end of this project. >> france, a nation that has seen so many attacks. 2015, attacks, other attacks that have frayed the nerves of many people. you have one candidate, marine le pen saying she could make changes but basically restricting the free movement across borders. you have another candidate saying these attacks will continue, though they will do what they can, but attacks will continue, mr. macron. how are voters receiving such different ways of approaching security? >> reporter: well, it's all very confusing for voters because you've got, like you said, emmanuel macron saying the best way to fight terrorism is to work as europeans, to share information that we have on suspicious individuals who might b

herfather, jean marie who stepped down as party leader six years ago, has called the holocaust a detail of the second world war. marine led the party of its stigma and present a softer image of herself as a mother, concerned to protect france. we could say that marine le pen is a strict mother figure. she has a motherly attitude towards macron, for instance. he is more like the rebellious child. a teenager would suit him perfectly. we want to believe that he will be great one day. the two programmes are very different. emmanuel macron is promising to cut taxes, invest heavily in industry and literary pro—eu. marine le pen says she will slash immigration, protect the 35 hour working week and pull france out of the euro. both the main established parties have now thrown their weight behind emmanuel macron. that puts him in a strong position — there is a long history here of political parties coming together in a run—off to block the le front national from power. will that happen this time? in the town of versailles, more than 30% of voters chose the conservative party candidate, francois fillon, yesterday. some are not yet

that they have got through to the second round since 2002 cents jean—marie got through to the second round since 2002 centsjean—marie lehis vindication of the way she has taken the party and moulded it in her image? yes, national front supporters... she has done a lot to make the party feel a little closer to the centre, not very much but a little. she would have done something in the eyes of political scientists to detoxify the party. the problem for marine le pen is that she would say france has changed, political critics would say that she has changed. that mountain to climb is obvious from what happened to her father in the second round of that election when the front national made it three in the past. he got less than 20% of the second—round vote as there was an enormous rallying of voters from the left and right to keep out the national front. that is their problem. that is how the french mainstream will play the second round if it is proved to be the case, as we believe, the 20th macro will make it. the pollution on the other side will be to get behind the other side will be to get behind the other candidate to

take a look at the top four candidates here, marie le pen wants a dramatically slow immigration from france, there is jeanc, a far left candidate who wants to withdraw globally. the relative centrist and francois of the center right. two have spoken openly about leaving nato and the european union, two others want to boost defense spending so the u.s. relies less on nato, more on european countries and less on the united states, of the four, three are talking about a stronger alliance or more conversations with russia and president vladimir putin. this has gotten to the united states for the past two u.s. presidents. you talked about what president trump tweeted there. he just had an interview with the associated press which he says he believes that the attack yesterday will help boost marie le pen because she has been strongest on borders. the president is not making an endorsement, also not making an endorsement is president barack obama, he called that relative centrist candidate and tweeted the candidate tweeted -- and president obama spokesperson stressed that president obama isn't endorsing anyone,

marie lip pen and the hard left candidate jean—luc melenchon. neither are those are happy about that's plays in europe. what we have now is the potential run or run off between marine le as you can see at this graph, the french as this morning are more than 5.5%. that is the definition of a relief rally. we may see that initial burst of enthusiasm tailing offa initial burst of enthusiasm tailing off a little bit over the next couple of weeks because do not forget marine le pen is not be presidential run—off, it is not inconceivable she could win, even if all people say otherwise. at the moment, it seems the markets believe that emmanuel macron, he's the favourite, let's put it that way. what kind of economic policy does he have? what do they feel he might do? well, he wants to make life easier for businesses for a start. he was to reduce the burden of regulation for them. he wants to reduce taxation, he wants to reduce taxation, he wants to reduce taxation on businesses in particular and he wants to reduce public spending, cut down the number of public servants. they have the number of economic reforms in the pipeline. there is a potential hiccup here. do not forget t

le pen, the front national, will fight emmanuel macron in the final round. she won more votes than the party has ever won before. it matches her father jean—marie'stial run—off. translation: the french people must take this historic opportunity, because the biggest issue is the globalisation that's putting our civilisation in danger. in bastille square in paris, some left—wing protesters faced off against the police. these demonstrators were angered by the results of this vote. they, and the rest of the country will have their final say in two weeks' time. james reynolds, bbc news, paris. let's get the thoughts of the former defence minister. what went so terribly wrong for the socialists? 6% of the vote. terribly wrong for the socialists? 696 of the vote. the vote was com pletely 696 of the vote. the vote was completely split because of the deep tendencies of our voters. you have far left... most of our popular voters voted for jean—luc far left... most of our popular voters voted forjean—luc melenchon, that would be 2.5 million voters. most of our middle—class voters voted for emmanuel macron. well, it isa mix voted for emmanuel macron. well, i

le pen, the front national leader, will fight emmanuel macron in the final round. she won more votes than the party has ever won before. it matches her father jean—marie'sidential run—off. translation: the french people must take this historic opportunity, because the biggest issue is the globalisation that's putting our civilisation in danger. in bastille square in paris, some left—wing protesters faced off against the police. these demonstrators were angered by the results of this vote. they, and the rest of the country, will have their final say in two weeks' time. james reynolds, bbc news, paris. hugh schofield joins us from paris. these two finalists are offering com pletely these two finalists are offering completely opposite visions of france in the future? they are indeed. and what is interesting in all of this is how the old left right divide in french politics has completely been swept aside by this vote. it is a process which is arguably happening in other countries as well, but here it is very stark. the old parties, the republicans on the right and the socialists who have dominated politics for 60 years have been com pletely politics for 60