Alwaght- French police have clashed with protestors at May Day rallies in the country’s capital on Monday as two presidential candidates exchanged barbs.
One police officer was reportedly seriously burnt and six others injured in the clashes in which security sources claim protesters threw Molotov cocktails and other missiles.
Demonstrators from French Unions also took to the streets to protest the results of the first round of the French presidential elections, in which independent candidate Emmanuel Macron is now set to battle it out with extremist right-wing politician Marine Le Pen in the second round due on May 7.
Some trade unionists and left-wing activists sought to make the day one of national solidarity against the National Front, mirroring protests in 2002 when Le Pen's father, party founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, was a candidate.
Speaking during a May Day Rally, Macron sustained struggle against Le Pen by stating that, "I will fight up until the very last second not only against her program but also her idea of what constitutes democracy and the French Republic."
He was speaking after paying tribute to a young Moroccan man who drowned in the River Seine in Paris 22 years ago after being pushed into the water by skinheads on the fringes of a May Day rally by the FN, then led by Le Pen's father Jean-Marie.
Meanwhile, campaigning in Villepinte, a suburb north of the capital, Marine Le Pen told a rally: "Emmanuel Macron is just Francois Hollande who wants to stay and who is hanging on to power like a barnacle."
The latest opinion poll showed Macron leading Le Pen by 61 percent to 39 ahead of Sunday's election, widely seen as the most crucial in decades.
