French election: Right-wing candidate Hanane Mansouri targeted with anti-Arab insults

Law student says the comments by rivals on the left only motivate her

Hanane Mansouri, 23, is standing for the Union of the Right and says she has faced racist abuse. Photo: Hanane Mansouri / Facebook

A right-wing candidate in the French parliamentary election says she is being targeted by the left with racist comments.

Hanane Mansouri, 23, said she has faced anti-Arab insults using French slang.

She hit back in a post on X, saying: “While the left insults me about my origins, I prefer to fight alongside true patriotic universalists.

“These racist attacks coming from the left do not impress me, on the contrary they motivate me.”

Speaking to French outlet Interviews, she said as a candidate for the Union of the Right, she said the comments will not make her “stop the fight”.

“Their business is precisely to reduce individuals to their origins and their skin colours,” she said.

“Conversely, the patriotic camp that I defend proposes to unite everyone around common republican values so that we can all be equal.”

Ms Mansouri, a law student who lives in Grenoble, told Le Dauphine Libere she was attacked two years ago alongside two other activists in a right-wing student union because she “advocated these ideas”.

She has received the support of the president of the Republicans, Eric Ciotti.

With less than two weeks to go before the first round in the snap elections called by Emmanuel Macron in response to the far-right drubbing of his party in European elections, the President's party is trailing badly.

Opinion polls forecast his ruling alliance will come third in the elections on June 30 – followed by a second round on July 7 – behind the far-right National Rally (RN) and a new left-wing alliance.

This could make RN leader Jordan Bardella prime minister in an awkward “cohabitation” with Mr Macron, although the 28-year-old has insisted he will only accept the post if his party and allies win an absolute majority of seats.

Mr Macron, on a visit to western France on Tuesday, said that he had “confidence in the French” not to choose either extreme: left or right.

“The RN and its allies offer things that may make people happy but in the end we are talking 100 billion [euros] a year” ($107 billion) in unbudgeted costs, he said.