PARIS—Presidential candidate Marine Le Pen said on Tuesday she was better placed than her rival, Emmanuel Macron, to defend France’s interests in what she called the “new world” of President Donald Trump and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
Le Pen, who rails against “uncontrolled globalization”, hopes to channel the same nationalist, anti-establishment sentiment that propelled Trump to the White House and spurred Britain’s vote to leave the European Union, and become the first woman to lead France.
She bills Macron, a pro-European Union former investment banker, as a stooge of banks and the elite.
“I think I’m best placed to talk to this new world that’s emerging, to talk to the Russia of Putin, to the United States of Trump, to talk to the Britain of (Prime Minister Theresa) May ... to talk to the India of (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi,” she said in an interview.
