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French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen steps down as leader of National Front party

Le Pen said a president must be above partisan considerations.

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Marine Le Pen, French National Front political party leader, celebrates after early results in the first round of 2017 French presidential election.
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Marine Le Pen, far-right French presidential candidate has announced that she is stepping down as the leader of her National Front (FN) party, reported BBC.

She said her decision is the result of "profound conviction" that the president must bring together all of the French people and be above partisan considerations. 

"So, this evening, I am no longer the president of the National Front. I am the candidate for the French presidency," she told French TV.

Le Pen is set to face centrist Emmanuel Macron in the May 7 presidential runoff.

Macron took a big step towards the French presidency on Sunday by winning the first round of voting and qualifying for a runoff alongside Le Pen.

Though Macron, 39, is a comparative political novice who has never held elected office, new opinion polls on Sunday had him easily winning the final clash against the 48-year-old Le Pen.

Sunday's outcome is a huge defeat for the two centre-right and centre-left groupings that have dominated French politics for 60 years, and also reduces the prospect of an anti-establishment shock on the scale of Britain's vote last June to quit the European Union and the election of Donald Trump as US president.

In a victory speech, Macron told supporters of his fledgling En Marche! (Onwards!) movement: "In one year, we have changed the face of French politics." He went on to say he would bring in new faces and talent to transform a stale political system if elected.

Conceding defeat even before figures from the count came in, rival conservative and Socialist candidates urged their supporters now to put their energies into backing Macron and stopping any chance of a second-round victory by Le Pen, whose anti-immigration and anti-Europe policies they said spelled disaster for France.

A Harris survey taken on Sunday saw Macron winning the runoff by 64% to 36, and an Ipsos/Sopra Steria poll gave a similar result.

As investors breathed a collective sigh of relief at what the market regarded as the best of several possible outcomes, the euro soared 2% to $1.09395 when markets opened in Asia before slipping back to around $1.0886. It was the euro's highest level since November 10, the day after the results of the US presidential election.

(With inputs from Reuters)

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