{"id":316025,"date":"2017-05-02T15:46:45","date_gmt":"2017-05-02T15:46:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=316025"},"modified":"2017-05-02T15:46:45","modified_gmt":"2017-05-02T15:46:45","slug":"france-election-le-pen-accused-of-plagiarising-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=316025","title":{"rendered":"France election: Le Pen accused of plagiarising speech"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has been accused of plagiarising defeated rival Fran\u00e7ois Fillon in a speech she delivered on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>Several sections of her speech in Villepinte, north of Paris, appear to repeat almost word-for-word comments Mr Fillon made in an address on 15 April.<\/p>\n<p>An official of her National Front party said she had made a &#8220;nod&#8221; to Mr Fillon and it showed she was &#8220;not sectarian&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Ms Le Pen faces centrist Emmanuel Macron in the final round on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>The similarity in the speeches was pointed out by the Ridicule TV YouTube channel, initially set up by Fran\u00e7ois Fillon&#8217;s supporters to attack Mr Macron before the first round of voting that saw Mr Fillon eliminated from the contest.<\/p>\n<p>Ridicule TV said the far right presidential candidate had plagiarised Mr Fillon&#8217;s speech &#8220;word for word&#8221; and set the two speeches side by side, inviting viewers to make up their own minds.<\/p>\n<p>The videos were also posted on Twitter.<\/p>\n<p>Several passages imitated Mr Fillon&#8217;s address word-for-word:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"story-body__unordered-list\">\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">In <strong>Mr Fillon<\/strong>&#8216;s speech, he made specific reference to France&#8217;s geography and neighbours. He called the Rhine border with Germany &#8220;the most open, the most dangerous, the most promising&#8221; but mentioned &#8220;a Germanic world we have been so often in conflict with and with which we will yet co-operate in so many ways&#8221;<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\"><strong>Ms Le Pen<\/strong> also called the same border &#8220;the most open and the most promising&#8221; and also mentioned &#8220;a Germanic world we will yet co-operate with in so many ways, as long as we regain the relationship of allies and not of subjects&#8221;<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Both speeches spoke of waiting lists to learn French in Shanghai, Tokyo, Mexico, Rabat and Rome<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Both speeches used the same quotation from World War One PM Georges Clemenceau<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">At times, the words were almost exactly the same. <strong>Mr Fillon <\/strong>said: &#8220;France is a history, it is a geography, but it is also a set of values and principles transmitted from generation to generation, as passwords. It is a singular voice addressed to all the peoples of the universe&#8221;<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\"><strong>Ms Le Pen <\/strong>echoed him with: &#8220;France is also a set of values and principles transmitted from generation to generation, as passwords. And then it is a voice, an extraordinary, singular voice that speaks to all the peoples of the universe&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The Liberation newspaper said that what was supposed to have been a key speech for the second phase of voting in the election became instead a focus of ridicule for social media users.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-image__img js-image-replace\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef-1.bbci.co.uk\/news\/624\/cpsprodpb\/1044C\/production\/_95863666_mediaitem95863663.jpg\" alt=\"Marine Le Pen\" width=\"976\" height=\"549\" data-highest-encountered-width=\"624\" \/><\/span><\/figure>\n<p>But Florian Philippot, deputy chairman of the National Front, told Radio Classique the party had owned up to the similarities and that Ms Le Pen&#8217;s speech was &#8220;nod-and-a-wink&#8221; to Mr Fillon&#8217;s speech to &#8220;launch a real debate&#8221; on French identity.<\/p>\n<p>He earlier told Agence France-Presse that the speech showed &#8220;she is not sectarian&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has been accused of plagiarising defeated rival Fran\u00e7ois Fillon in a speech she delivered on Monday. Several sections of her speech in Villepinte, north of Paris, appear to repeat almost word-for-word comments Mr Fillon made in an address on 15 April. An official of her National Front party said [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":313646,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[6521,2690],"class_list":["post-316025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-le-pen","tag-plagiarism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=316025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=316025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=316025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=316025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}