French election: Protester removed from Le Pen news conference amid scrutiny over Russia ties

A protester holding a heart-shaped placard featuring French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen and Russia’s Vladimir Putin was dragged out of a news conference in Paris amid anger over the National Rally leader’s ties to the Kremlin.

The female demonstrator interrupted a question and answer session being held by Ms Le Pen in the run-up to France’s runoff vote by standing up and holding the cut out image – taken when the pair met in Moscow in 2017 – above her head.

The placard was swiftly pulled from her hands and she was then dragged several metres through the conference hall to a doorway, before being taken out of view of the assembled cameras.

The nationalist politician, who is vying to unseat Emmanuel Macron in the 24 April election, has maintained links to the Kremlin and is pursuing policies which Moscow favours, such as weakening the European Union and withdrawing from Nato.

The protest, said to have been staged by a Green councillor, sparked a row between the two candidates’ teams over who was responsible for the heavy-handed response.

Ms Le Pen claimed it was a policeman “who challenged that woman and who got hurt in the process. He got injured while detaining her and couldn't complete the job of removing her”.

But Gerald Darmanin, France’s interior minister, called on Ms Le Pen to apologise for wrongly blaming police for the incident.

"Have the honesty to admit the individual who drags the protester along the floor is a member of your own security detail," he said.

The row was yet another indication of the fraught and polarised election campaign that many French people say has left them with a difficult choice between centrist Mr Macron, who is unpopular with some for moving to raise the retirement age, and Ms Le Pen, whose far-right policies include the prospect of a return to the death penalty.

The French leader, out campaigning on Thursday, warned of an "authoritarian drift" under a future Le Pen presidency.

Both candidates must win over left-wing voters if they are to succeed, including from hard-left third-place candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon. Mr Macron retains a narrow lead in opinion polls.

Speaking on Wednesday before the protester was ejected, Ms Le Pen suggested that France under her leadership would be reluctant to supply arms to Ukraine.

"I'm more reserved about direct arms deliveries. Why? Because ... the line is thin between aid and becoming a co-belligerent," she said, adding that she believed Nato should seek a "strategic rapprochement" with Russia once the war is over.

She also revealed more details about her foreign policy plans, which include halting aid to African countries unless they take back "undesirable" migrants trying to reach France.

That plan, which echoes in tone if not substance a programme unveiled by the British government to send people seeking sanctuary in the UK to a processing centre in the central African nation of Rwanda, is part of an anti-immigration agenda that would see those deemed to have entered France illegally expelled.

Ms Le Pen said she also wanted to cut funding for projects to improve women's reproductive health in developing countries and those aimed at tackling environmental issues.