French conservative presidential bidder goes hardline in key speech

At a rally that drew around 7,000 supporters in Paris on Sunday, the 54-year-old conservative candidate in April's presidential elections, Valérie Pécresse, sandwiched in opinion polls between two far-right candidates and well adrift of outgoing president Emmanuel Macron, gave a hardline speech pledging to crackdown on immigration and to fight so-called 'woke culture' in the cause of building 'a new France'.