After “the battle of Whirlpool,” when Marine Le Pen and centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron both went hunting for France’s blue-collar vote, the presidential candidates clashed over fish in a return to more traditional campaigning. The anti-European Union far-right populist Le Pen was up before dawn to cruise aboard a fishing trawler on the Mediterranean. “My grandfather was a fisherman, so I am in my element,” Le Pen said after her pre-dawn voyage aboard the “Grace of God 2” trawler. Le Pen may have hit a turning point with her surprise visit to the threatened Whirlpool clothes-dryer factory in northern France. The campaign maneuver put Macron on the defensive and prompted him to also meet angry Whirlpool workers later the same day.

Source: Washington Post April 27, 2017 07:58 UTC