Far-right French candidate sticks to patriotic strategy

Paris - French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen says the spring election will pit nationalists and patriots like herself against those in favour of globalisation, the European Union and immigration.

Speaking on Friday at an annual horse fair outside Paris - where she donned a cowboy hat and mounted a horse - Le Pen said Socialist President Francois Hollande's decision, announced the previous evening, not to seek a second term won't change her strategy.

She predicted that Prime Minister Manuel Valls will run instead as the Socialist presidential candidate, facing her and conservative former Prime Minister Francois Fillon, who won the right's primary.

She says "You know I don't believe in this left-right fracture. On the one side are nationalists, patriots. On the other, globalisationists, Europeanists and so, by definition, immigrationists."