French Voters Face Presidential Election Between Xenophobic Candidate & Centrist Investment Banker

Voters in France head to the polls Sunday for a presidential election that pits former investment banker Emmanuel Macron against far-right politician Marine Le Pen. On Thursday, Macron won the support of former U.S. President Barack Obama, who urged French voters to reject the politics of fear. Le Pen has campaigned on an openly xenophobic and racist platform, and faced protests Thursday as she campaigned at a trucking company in Brittany. "They have to choose between an openly racist candidate like Marine Le Pen, who promises the supremacy of whites and Christians, regardless of our constitution, of our tradition of separation between church and the state, and, on the other hand, you have Emmanuel Macron, who appears to be this young guy who sends a signal of, yes, it's going to be about empowering people through entrepreneurship," says our guest in Paris, Yasser Louati, a French human rights and civil liberties activist and researcher. "The problem is that his version of society is that you run a country like you run a company. And the problem is that nothing in his program actually goes alongside the working class."