Marine Le Pen's campaign HQ target of 'arson attack'
Marine Le Pen's campaign headquarters were targeted in an arson attack, causing minor damage to the building and prompting the Front National candidate to blame leftist groups.
Ms Le Pen said should would press for charges over the attack.
Police said unknown arsonists had thrown a petrol bomb at the building, causing damage to a door and a doormat.
Firefighters were called around 2.40am to the ground floor offices of an insurance company on the upmarket Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore in central Paris.
A fire service spokesman said the fire was "quickly brought under control".
The upper floors of the building, close to the president's Elysée Palace, house Ms Le Pen's campaign headquarters.
The anti-globalisation and anti-EU candidate is neck-and-neck with centrist Emmanuel Macron in polls for the first round of the election on April 23.
A police source said the cause of the fire was "not natural and probably criminal", adding that the graffiti slogan "FN vs KLM" was found nearby.
A group calling itself Fight Xenophobia contacted AFP to claim the attack, which it said was carried out with "Molotov cocktails".
The caller, who refused to give a name, also claimed to have carried out a similar attack on a far-right newspaper and said the action would continue until the election.
Matthias Fekl, the interior minister, condemned the attack.
"These are unacceptable acts, the democratic debate must take place in the ballot box," he told RTL radio.
"We have been in touch with the Front National candidate's team since last night and will see with them if it is necessary to strengthen security procedures."
Ms Le Pen told France 2 television she believed a leftist group was responsible, but she gave no detail and did not say why she believed one such group was responsible.
"I assume this is due to a small leftist group," she said. "These groups act in total impunity," she added, saying that the government should dissolve them.
Ms Le Pen told Le Figaro she intended to file for charges over the incident and she was "astonished" to find out about it via media, saying that state services had not "contacted us to inform us".
The FN's security service said it has been calling for "static surveillance" in front of the building. "They (the police) refused," a party source claimed, despite the fact that the FN has been designated as a "choice target" by Islamist groups.
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