Le Pen Disavows Economic Advisor on Euro Membership, Taxes

May 2, 2002 - 0:0
PARIS French far-right presidential candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen disavowed Wednesday an economic advisor who had said France should remain in the euro zone even if Le Pen won the election, AFP reported.

Jean-Claude Martinez, a European deputy and economic specialist for Le Pen's national front, told a press conference Tuesday at the party's headquarters: "We must leave neither Europe nor the euro zone".

Martinez also maintained the maximum national tax rate should be 41 percent, and not the 35 percent that Le Pen has suggested.

But Le Pen told RTL radio on Wednesday: "When Mr. Martinez is a presidential candidate, you can ask him.

"For now, that is not the case. It is me, and it is on the program that I have defined and laid out that you may question me, not on the opinion my concierge might have on the hours I keep."

Le Pen has said that if elected -- a slim possibility according to polls -- he would push to get france out of the European Union, an institution it helped found a half-century ago.

"The first question I would raise would be the restoration of french freedoms and an exit from the Europe of Maastricht," the 1992 treaty that led to the euro currency, Le Pen said a day after his shock second-place result in the first round of French presidential elections on April 21.

He has since said the euro could be maintained as a "common currency", but not as a "single currency".

The second round of voting is to take place on Sunday.