World

PARIS —  Pro-European centrist Emmanuel Macron resoundingly won France's landmark presidential election, first estimates showed Sunday, heading off a fierce challenge from the far-right in a pivotal vote for the future of the divided country and Europe.

The victory caps an extraordinary rise for the 39-year-old former investment banker, who will become the country's youngest-ever leader.

He has promised to heal a fractured and demoralised country after a vicious campaign that has exposed deep economic and social divisions, as well as tensions around identity and immigration.

Initial estimates showed Macron winning between 65.5 per cent and 66.1 per cent of ballots ahead of Le Pen on between 33.9 per cent and 34.5 per cent.

Unknown three years ago, Macron is now poised to become one of Europe's most powerful leaders, bringing with him a hugely ambitious agenda of political and economic reform for France and the European Union.

The result will resonate worldwide and particularly in Brussels and Berlin where leaders will breathe a sigh of relief that Le Pen's anti-EU, anti-globalisation programme has been defeated.

After Britain’s vote last year to leave the EU and Donald Trump’s victory in the US, the French election had been widely watched as a test of how high a tide of right-wing nationalism would rise.

Le Pen, 48, had portrayed the ballot as a contest between Macron and the “globalists” — in favour of open trade, immigration and shared sovereignty — and her “patriotic” vision of strong borders and national identities.

Outgoing President Francois Hollande, who plucked Macron from obscurity to name him minister in 2014, said voting “is always an important, significant act, heavy with consequences” as he cast his vote.

Macron will now face huge challenges as he attempts to enact his domestic agenda of cutting state spending, easing labour laws, boosting education in deprived areas and extending new protections to the self-employed.

The philosophy and literature lover is inexperienced, has no political party and must try to fashion a working parliamentary majority after legislative elections next month.

His En Marche movement — “neither of the left, nor right” — has vowed to field candidates in all 577 constituencies, with half of them women and half of them newcomers to politics.

“We will reconstruct right to the end! We’ll keep our promise of renewal!” he said during his last campaign meeting in the southern city of Albi on Thursday.

Many analysts are sceptical about his ability to win a majority with En Marche candidates alone, meaning he would have to form a coalition of lawmakers committed to his agenda — something new under France’s current constitution.

Furthermore, his economic agenda, particularly plans to weaken labour regulations to fight stubbornly high unemployment, are likely to face fierce resistance from trade unions and his leftist opponents.

He also inherits a country which is still in a state of emergency following a string of Islamist-inspired attacks since 2015 that have killed more than 230 people.

The vote Sunday followed one of the most unpredictable election campaigns in modern history marked by scandal, repeated surprises and a last-minute hacking attack on Macron.

Hundreds of thousands of e-mails and documents stolen from his campaign were dumped online on Friday and then spread by anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, leading the candidate to call it an attempt at “democratic destabilisation”.

 France’s election authority said publishing the documents could be a criminal offence, a warning flouted by Macron’s opponents and far-right activists online.

It was the latest twist in an election that has consistently wrong-footed observers as angry voters chose to eject establishment figures, including one-time favourite Francois Fillon, a rightwing ex-prime minister.

Unpopular Hollande was the first to bow to the rebellious mood in December as he declared he would be the first sitting president not to seek reelection in the French republic, founded in 1958.

In the first round of the presidential election on April 23, Macron topped the vote with 24.01 per cent, followed by Le Pen on 21.3 per cent, in a crowded field of 11 candidates.

The results revealed Macron was favoured among wealthier, better educated citizens in cities, while Le Pen drew support in the countryside as well as poverty-hit areas in the south and rustbelt northeast.

SEOUL — When Park Geun-hye was elected South Korea's first female president five years ago she secured the largest-ever vote share of the country's democratic era. But after her term ended in impeachment and disgrace only one of the 13 candidates to succeed her is a woman.

Analysts say the near all-male panel — epitomised by rows of campaign posters dominated by middle-aged men in dark suits — demonstrates the enduringly patriarchal nature of Korean society.

The only exception is Sim Sang-jeung, a former labour activist who is the leftwing Justice Party's candidate.

Park — the daughter of the late dictator Park Chung-hee — was ousted from power in March over a massive corruption and influence-peddling scandal centred on a secret female confidante that prompted millions to take to the streets calling for her ouster. 

She is now detained and awaiting trial for charges including abuse of power and bribery, and the public outrage unleashed a storm of sexist remarks online such as: "Don't even dream about having a female president for the next 100 years."

 Sim condemns what she calls a sexual double standard, saying no one took issue with the gender of two previous presidents — both men — who were imprisoned in the 1990s for their part in crushing the Gwangju uprising against the military-backed dictatorship.

"We had two other ex-presidents jailed for slaughtering countless citizens who were protesting against army rule. But not a single person said, 'No more male presidents'," she said in a campaign speech. 

Park is a conservative who did little for women's rights while in office, and female politicians struggling with the glass ceiling say her humiliating downfall has done nothing to help. 

"I've seen recently many male voters, or even male politicians, saying, 'This is why women should never be in politics'," said Han Jeoung-ae, a two-term lawmaker with the centre-left Democratic Party.

"We have no shortage of male politicians brought down by corruption and other crimes, but no one ever frames it as the failure of entire male politicians like they do over women," she told AFP. 

Glass ceiling 

Female politicians are still a relative rarity in the South, accounting for only 17 per cent of parliamentary representatives, ranking it 30th among the 35 advanced nations of the OECD. 

That is an advance on the 6 per cent of 2000, but it is still "extremely hard" for female politicians to secure electoral nominations, said Nam In-soon, a Democratic lawmaker, who is pushing for parties to be legally obliged to select women as at least 30 per cent of their candidates.

"We have made some progress over the years, but most internal networking within a political party's leadership is still based on the good old boys' club," she told AFP. "We still have this hard, thick glass ceiling all over our head." 

Park herself rose to power largely due to the popularity of her father, who remains widely revered by older voters who benefited from rapid growth under his 1961-79 iron-fisted rule. 

South Korea remains a deeply conservative society in many respects and, along with Japan, is seen as one of the worst places for working women among economically advanced nations. 

The two Asian neighbours were this year ranked at the bottom of the Economist's "Glass Ceiling index", which measures gender equality at work among 29 advanced nations.

'Superwoman Prevention' 

Sim has no chance of victory at the ballot box, with South Korea's leading pollsters both putting her in fourth place in the final surveys of the campaign, on 7.3 per cent according to Realmeter and 8 per cent for Gallup Korea, far behind Democratic Party front-runner Moon Jae-in.

But the 58-year-old scored well in debates and was the most vocal critic of Hong Joon-pyo, the candidate of Park's conservative Liberty Korea Party, who is known as "Korea's Trump" for his outspoken rhetoric and sexist remarks and has been polling third. 

Hong, 62, drew fire for saying "washing dishes is women's work" in an interview, and for bragging in his memoir about helping a college friend with an attempted date rape by drugging a woman. 

Sim targeted him repeatedly during a television debate until he forced out an apology.

Sim is pushing for measures to help working mothers faced with the double burdens of employment and household duties, dubbed "Superwoman Prevention Laws", and rules to make half the Cabinet women.

"The current reality faced by female politicians still looks bleak," said Lee Jin-ock, head of Korea Women's Politics Solidarity think tank.

But Sim offers a ray of hope as a "new female leader who climbs the political ladder on her own terms", she told AFP, "unlike Park who symbolises the patriarchal, patronage politics of the past".

PARIS —France sought to keep a computer hack of frontrunner Emmanuel Macron's campaign emails from influencing the outcome of the country's presidential election with a warning on Saturday it could be a criminal offence to republish the data.

Macron's team said a "massive" hack had dumped e-mails, documents and campaign financing information online just before campaigning ended on Friday and France entered a quiet period which forbids politicians from commenting on the leak.

The data leak emerged as polls predicted Macron, a former investment banker and economy minister, was on course for a comfortable victory over far-right leader Marine Le Pen in Sunday's election, with the last surveys showing his lead widening to around 62 per cent to 38.

"On the eve of the most important election for our institutions, the commission calls on everyone present on Internet sites and social networks, primarily the media, but also all citizens, to show responsibility and not to pass on this content, so as not to distort the sincerity of the ballot," the French election commission said in a statement on Saturday.

However, the commission — which supervises the electoral process — may find it difficult to enforce its rules in an era where people get much of their news online, information flows freely across borders and many users are anonymous.

French media covered the hack in various ways, with left-leading Liberation giving it prominence on its website, but television news channels opting not to mention it.

Le Monde newspaper said on its website it would not publish the content of any of the leaked documents before the election, partly because the huge amount of data meant there was not enough time to report on it properly, but also because the dossiers had been published on purpose 48 hours before the election with the clear aim of affecting the vote.

"If these documents contain revelations, Le Monde will of course publish them after having investigated them, respecting our journalistic and ethical rules, and without allowing ourselves to be exploited by the publishing calendar of anonymous actors," it said.

As the #Macronleaks hashtag buzzed around social media on Friday night, Florian Philippot, deputy leader of Le Pen's National Front Party, tweeted "Will Macronleaks teach us something that investigative journalism has deliberately kept silent?"

 Destabilisation

As much as 9 gigabytes of data purporting to be documents from the Macron campaign were posted on a profile called EMLEAKS to Pastebin, a site that allows anonymous document sharing. 

It was not immediately clear who was responsible, but Macron's political movement said in a statement the hack was an attempt to destabilise democracy and to damage the party.

En Marche! said the leaked documents dealt with the normal operations of a campaign and included some information on campaign accounts. It said the hackers had mixed false documents with authentic ones to "sow doubt and disinformation."

Sunday's election is seen as the most important in France for decades, with two diametrically opposed views of Europe and the country's place in the world at stake.

Le Pen would close borders and quit the euro currency, while Macron wants closer European cooperation and an open economy.

Voters in some French overseas territories and the Americas were due to cast their ballots on Saturday, a day before voting in France itself. The first polling stations to open at 1000 GMT were in Saint Pierre and Miquelon, islands off Canada.

Others in French Guiana in South America; Guadeloupe and Martinique in the Caribbean; the South Pacific islands of French Polynesia and French citizens living elsewhere in the Americas were also due to vote on Saturday.

In France, police union Alternative Police warned in a statement that there was a risk of violence on election day by activists of the far-right or far-left.

Extreme-right student activists burst into the office of Macron's political movement in the southeastern city of Lyon on Friday evening, setting off smoke grenades and scattering false bank notes bearing Macron's picture, police said.

France is the latest nation to see a major election overshadowed by allegations of manipulation through cyber hacking after US intelligence agencies said in January that Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered hacking of parties tied to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to influence the election on behalf of Republican Donald Trump.

Vitali Kremez, director of research with New York-based cyber intelligence firm Flashpoint, told Reuters his review indicated that APT 28, a group tied to the GRU, the Russian military intelligence directorate, was behind the leak. 

Macron's campaign has previously complained about attempts to hack its e-mails, blaming Russian interests in part for the cyber attacks.

The Kremlin has denied it was behind any such attacks, although Macron's camp renewed complaints against Russian media and a hackers' group operating in Ukraine.

CARACAS — Deadly anti-government protests threatened to rage on in Venezuela Thursday with students vowing fresh marches after a day of flames and tear gas brought the death toll to 32.

Police fired tear gas and protesters hurled Molotov cocktails on Wednesday in the latest rallies against President Nicolas Maduro's plan to rewrite the constitution.

With tension at a boiling point, rumours broke out online that jailed opposition figure Leopoldo Lopez had died in prison. The government released a video of Lopez denying the claims.

The opposition accused Maduro of trying to strengthen his grip on power and delay elections by launching constitutional reforms.

Daniel Ascanio, a student leader from Simon Bolivar University, told reporters that students will march from campuses on Thursday around the country to demand "democracy and freedom".

 "We will be joined by unions, homemakers, and lawmakers. All sectors of society will mobilise to send a message to Maduro."

 The opposition blames the president for food and medicine shortages afflicting the oil-rich country. They want a vote on removing him from office.

The president, elected in 2013, says the crisis is a US-backed capitalist conspiracy and vows to continue his side's socialist "revolution".

 The opposition has accused authorities of violently repressing protests. The government says the opposition is fomenting violence.

"I don't know how long the protests are going to last," senior opposition leader Henrique Capriles told AFP in an interview.

"If we were being violent, if we were not being democratic, we would already have toppled the government."

In his latest crisis maneuver, Maduro on Wednesday launched procedures at the electoral council to elect a "constituent assembly".

It will draw up a new constitution "so that our people ... with their voice can decide the destiny of our homeland", he said.

Private polls indicate that more than 70 per cent of those interviewed do not support Maduro.

Maduro said the constitutional reform body would not include political parties with seats in the opposition-controlled national assembly, but representatives of social groups traditionally loyal to him.

The opposition said that skews the assembly in Maduro's favour.

Maduro's centre-right opponents and some international powers said the move is an attempt to dodge local elections this year and a presidential poll set for late 2018.

"Since the government cannot win elections, it wants to dismantle the system for holding them," Capriles told AFP.

Attorney general Luisa Ortega caused a surprise in March by breaking ranks with the government over the political crisis.

She condemned the High Court's short-lived suspension of the National assembly — the only pillar of state authority not in the hands of Maduro supporters.

Ortega told The Wall Street Journal that the government should ensure people's right to demonstrate freely, without arbitrary arrests.

"We can't demand peaceful and legal behavior from citizens if the state takes decisions that don't accord with the law," the Journal quoted her as saying on Wednesday.

Venezuela has seen three attempted military coups since 1992. In 2014, clashes at anti-government protests killed 43 people.

Despite the country's chaos, Maduro retains the military's public backing — one thing that analysts say could yet tip the balance against him.

"What happens if the National Guard [military police] says they are not going to continue the repression?" Capriles said.

"Will Maduro's position be sustainable?"

 The crisis has been fuelled by falling prices for Venezuela's crucial oil exports, but the government has so far avoided defaulting on its foreign debts.

KABUL — A powerful blast targeting an armoured NATO convoy in Kabul killed at least eight people and wounded 28 on Wednesday, including three coalition troops, officials said in an attack claimed by the Daesh terror group.

The explosion, which came during morning rush hour on a busy road near the US embassy and NATO headquarters, killed “mostly” civilians, an interior ministry spokesman told AFP without giving a breakdown.

Three coalition service members received “non-life threatening wounds” but are in stable condition, a spokesman for US Forces-Afghanistan said, without confirming their nationalities.

The attack, claimed by Daesh via its Amaq propaganda agency, comes three weeks after the US dropped its largest non-nuclear bomb on the jihadist group’s hideouts in eastern Afghanistan, triggering global shockwaves.

Monday’s blast also comes days after the Taliban launched their “spring offensive”, heralding a surge in fighting as the US seeks to craft a new Afghan strategy and NATO mulls boosting troop levels to break the “stalemate” against the resurgent militants.

The attack, which Daesh said was a suicide car bomb and NATO said was an improvised explosive device, damaged two of the convoy’s heavily armoured vehicles and left a small crater in the road.

MRAP (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected) vehicles, which are designed to withstand large explosions, are routinely used by international forces moving around Kabul. 

At least three civilian cars were also damaged, with one ablaze, while windows were shattered up to several hundred metres away. Firefighters and ambulances rushed stunned survivors to hospital as President Ashraf Ghani slammed the blast as a “criminal act”.

NATO commander in Afghanistan General John Nicholson has said the US decision to drop the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast in Nangarhar province last month was a “very clear message” to Daesh: “If they come to Afghanistan they will be destroyed.”

Some observers have condemned the move against a group that is not considered as big a threat to Afghanistan as the Taliban. Others suggested it would boost the Taliban, who have been in a turf war with Daesh in Nangarhar.

The weapon, dubbed the “Mother of All Bombs”, killed at least 95 extremists, according to the Afghan defence ministry, but fighting in the area has continued. 

Last week, two US troops were killed in an operation against Daesh near where the bomb was dropped. The Pentagon has said it is investigating if they were killed by friendly fire.

Grinding conflict

Pentagon chief Jim Mattis warned of “another tough year” for both foreign troops and local forces in Afghanistan when he visited Kabul last month, though he would not be drawn on calls by Nicholson for a “few thousand” more troops against the Taliban insurgents.

But NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg told a German newspaper Sunday that the 28-nation alliance was considering boosting its troop strength once more given the “challenging” security situation. 

The US has around 8,400 troops in the country with about another 5,000 from NATO allies. Most are taking part in NATO’s train, assist and advise mission, though some are also carrying out counter-terror missions targeting Daesh and Al Qaeda.

First emerging in 2015, Daesh’s local affiliate in Afghanistan overran large parts of Nangarhar and Kunar provinces, near the Pakistan border, but their part in the Afghan conflict had been largely overshadowed by the operations against the Taliban.

Captain Bill Salvin, spokesman for US Forces-Afghanistan, said the local Daesh presence peaked at between 2,500 to 3,000 but that defections and recent battlefield losses had reduced their number to a maximum of 800.

“We have a very good chance of destroying them in 2017,” Salvin told AFP recently.

Embattled Afghan forces meanwhile have been straining to beat back the Taliban insurgents since US-led NATO troops ended their combat mission in December 2014. 

A report by US watchdog SIGAR said they suffered “shockingly high” casualties in the first three months of 2017.

Afghan analyst Ahmad Muradi told AFP on Wednesday that whether attacks are carried out by Daesh or the Taliban, “the result is the same: it makes the government and its international supporters tired, and security forces too stretched out, fighting several enemies on several fronts at the same time”.

With more than one third of Afghanistan outside of government control, civilians continue to bear the heaviest brunt of the fighting, with thousands killed and wounded each year and children paying an increasingly disproportionate price, according to UN figures.

SEOUL/BEIJING — North Korea accused the United States on Tuesday of pushing the Korean Peninsula to the brink of nuclear war after a pair of strategic US bombers flew training drills with the South Korean and Japanese air forces in another show of strength.

The two supersonic B-1B Lancer bombers were deployed amid rising tensions over North Korea's pursuit of its nuclear and missile programmes in defiance of UN sanctions and pressure from the United States.

The flight of the two bombers on Monday came as US President Donald Trump said he would be "honoured" to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in the right circumstances, and as his CIA director landed in South Korea for talks.

South Korean defence ministry spokesman Moon Sang-gyun told a briefing in Seoul that Monday's joint drill was conducted to deter provocations by the North.

North Korea said the bombers conducted "a nuclear bomb dropping drill against major objects" in its territory at a time when Trump and "other US warmongers are crying out for making a preemptive nuclear strike" on the North.

"The reckless military provocation is pushing the situation on the Korean Peninsula closer to the brink of nuclear war," the North's official KCNA news agency said on Tuesday.

Tensions on the Korean peninsula have been high for weeks, driven by concerns that the North might conduct its sixth nuclear test in defiance of pressure from the United States and Pyongyang's sole major ally, China.

The US military's THAAD anti-missile defence system has reached initial operational capacity in South Korea, US officials told Reuters, although they cautioned that it would not be fully operational for some months.

China has repeatedly expressed its opposition to the system, whose powerful radar it fears could reach inside Chinese territory. Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang again denounced THAAD on Tuesday.

"We will resolutely take necessary measures to defend our interests," Geng said, without elaborating.

Asked about Trump's suggestion he could meet Kim, Geng said China had noted US comments that it wanted to use peaceful means to resolve the issue. Trump has recently been full of praise of Chinese President Xi Jinping's efforts to rein in its neighbour.

"China has always believed that using peaceful means via dialogue and consultation to resolve the peninsula's nuclear issue is the only realistic, feasible means to achieve denuclearisation of the peninsula and maintain peace and stability there, and is the only correct choice," Geng told a daily news briefing. 

It was widely feared North Korea could conduct its sixth nuclear test on or around April 15 to celebrate the anniversary of the birth of the North's founding leader, Kim Il-sung, or on April 25 to coincide with the 85th anniversary of the foundation of its Korean People's Army.

The North has conducted such tests or missile launches to mark significant events in the past.

Instead, North Korea conducted an annual military parade, featuring a display of missiles on April 15 and then a large, live-fire artillery drill 10 days later.

‘Vigilance, readiness’

Acting South Korean president Hwang Kyo-ahn called for stronger vigilance because of continuing provocation by North Korea and for countries such as China to increase pressure on the North.

The US military said Mike Pompeo, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, visited South Korea and conducted detailed security discussions with his South Korean counterpart Lee Byung-ho and also visited Yeonpyeong Island, which was bombed by North Korea in 2010.

Trump drew criticism in Washington on Monday when he said he would be "honoured" to meet North Korea's young leader.

"If it would be appropriate for me to meet with him, I would absolutely, I would be honoured to do it," Trump told Bloomberg News.

Trump did not say what conditions would be needed for such a meeting to occur or when it could happen.

"Clearly conditions are not there right now," White House spokesman Sean Spicer said.

Trump warned in an interview with Reuters on Thursday that a "major, major conflict" with North Korea was possible, while China said last week the situation on the Korean Peninsula could escalate or slip out of control.

In a show of force, the United States has already sent an aircraft carrier strike group, led by the USS Carl Vinson, to waters off the Korean Peninsula to conduct drills with South Korea and Japan.

North Korea test-launched a missile on Saturday that appeared to have failed within minutes, its fourth successive failed launch since March. It has conducted two nuclear tests and a series of missile-related activities at an unprecedented pace since the beginning of last year.

The North is technically still at war with the South after their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a treaty, and regularly threatens to destroy the United States, Japan and South Korea.

PARIS — Centrist presidential frontrunner Emmanuel Macron and his far-right rival Marine Le Pen attacked each other's visions of France and the role it should play in Europe on Monday against a background of May Day rallies and protests.

Macron sought for a third successive day to paint National Front (FN) candidate Le Pen as an extremist, while she portrayed him as a clone of unpopular outgoing Socialist President Francois Hollande, under whom he served as economy minister from 2014 to 2016.

The latest opinion poll showed Macron leading Le Pen by 61 per cent to 39 ahead of Sunday's election, widely seen as the most crucial in decades.

On offer is a choice between his vision of closer integration with a modernised European Union and her calls to cut immigration and take the country out of the euro.

"I will fight up until the very last second not only against her programme but also her idea of what constitutes democracy and the French Republic," said Macron, an independent backed by a new party, En Marche! (Onwards!), which he set up himself a year ago.

He was speaking after paying tribute to a young Moroccan man who drowned in the River Seine in Paris 22 years ago after being pushed into the water by skinheads on the fringes of a May Day rally by the FN, then led by Le Pen's father Jean-Marie.

Campaigning in Villepinte, a suburb north of the capital, Marine Le Pen told a rally: "Emmanuel Macron is just Francois Hollande who wants to stay and who is hanging on to power like a barnacle."

 She called for France to reclaim its “independence” from the EU but made no mention of her proposal to drop the euro, the part of her campaign platform which is the least popular with voters, and which she has played down in recent days.

Party image

Le Pen has worked hard to cleanse the FN of xenophobic and anti-semitic associations and make it more appealing to a wider electorate. She said at the weekend she had no more contact with her father and was not responsible for his “unacceptable comments”.

Le Pen senior gave his own traditional May Day speech at a statue of national heroine Joan of Arc, a short walk from where Macron commemorated the death of young Moroccan Brahim Bouarram.

"Emmanuel Macron is doing a tour of graveyards. It's a bad sign for him," he said. His speech before a crowd of a few hundred supporters drew chants of "France for the French!" and "Islam out of France!" 

At rallies in Paris, Marseille and elsewhere, some trade unionists and left-wing activists sought to turn the traditional May Day workers' holiday into a day of national solidarity against the National Front, mirroring protests in 2002 when Jean-Marie Le Pen made it through to the second round of the presidential election before losing heavily to conservative Jacques Chirac.

However, other groups, including the powerful CGT union, refused to explicitly back Macron and organised their demonstrations separately. 

Masked groups of youths dressed in black were visible among protesters in the capital. BFM TV showed images of what looked like a burning shopping trolley rolled into a line of riot police and one officer set alight by a petrol bomb before his colleagues put the fire out.

Police said officers used tear gas against protesters who had injured three of their number by throwing petrol bombs.

Divided France

The bitterly contested election has polarised France, exposing some of the same sense of anger with globalisation and political elites that brought Donald Trump to presidential power in the United States, and caused Britons to vote for a divorce from the EU.

The vote in the world's fifth largest economy, a key member of the NATO defence alliance, will be the first to elect a president who is from neither of the main political groupings: the candidates of the Socialists and conservative party The Republicans were knocked out in the first round on April 23. 

Between them Le Pen and Macron gathered only 45 per cent of votes in that round, which eliminated nine other candidates.

The second round will take place in the middle of a weekend extended by a public holiday. A high abstention rate could favour Le Pen, whose supporters typically tell pollsters they are staunchly committed to their candidate.

She devoted much of her speech, lasting nearly an hour, to attacking Macron as the face of the establishment. He was due to speak at a Paris rally later in the day.

Referring to her plan to hold a referendum on whether France should remain in the EU, Le Pen said: "The French people will decide."

She told supporters: "I want France to get its independence back by negotiating with Brussels the return of our sovereignty."

SEOUL — North Korea test-fired a ballistic missile on Saturday shortly after US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned that failure to curb Pyongyang's nuclear and ballistic missile programmes could lead to "catastrophic consequences".

US and South Korean officials said the test, from an area north of the North Korean capital, appeared to have failed, in what would be the North's fourth straight unsuccessful missile test since March. 

The test came as the USS Carl Vinson Aircraft Carrier group arrived in waters near the Korean Peninsula, where it began exercises with the South Korean navy on Saturday, about 12 hours after the failed launch, a South Korean navy official said. 

Tillerson, in a UN Security Council meeting on North Korea on Friday, repeated the Trump administration's position that all options were on the table if Pyongyang persisted with its nuclear and missile development.

"The threat of a nuclear attack on Seoul, or Tokyo, is real, and it's only a matter of time before North Korea develops the capability to strike the US mainland," Tillerson said.

"Failing to act now on the most pressing security issue in the world may bring catastrophic consequences."

 US President Donald Trump said the launch was an affront to China, the North's sole main ally.

"North Korea disrespected the wishes of China & its highly respected president when it launched, though unsuccessfully, a missile today. Bad!," Trump said in a post on Twitter after the launch. 

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told the UN meeting it was not only up to China to solve the North Korean problem.

"The key to solving the nuclear issue on the peninsula does not lie in the hands of the Chinese side," Wang said.

In a commentary on Saturday, China's official Xinhua news agency said both North Korea and the United States needed to tread cautiously. 

"If both sides fail to make such necessary concessions, then not only will the two countries, but the whole region and the whole world end up paying a heavy price for a possible confrontation." 

Trump, in an interview with Reuters on Thursday, praised Chinese leader Xi Jinping for "trying very hard" on North Korea but warned a "major, major conflict" was possible.

The North has been conducting missile and nuclear weapons related activities at an unprecedented rate and is believed to have made progress in developing intermediate-range and submarine-launched missiles.

Tension on the Korean peninsula has been high for weeks over fears the North may conduct a long-range missile test, or its sixth nuclear test, around the time of the April 15 anniversary of its state founder's birth.

Japan protests

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe condemned the test as a grave threat to the international order.

"I urged Russia to play a constructive role in dealing with North Korea," Abe told reporters in London. "Japan is watching how China will act in regard to North Korea." 

US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the North Koreans had probably tested a medium-range missile known as a KN-17 and it appeared to have broken up within minutes of taking off.

The South Korean military said the missile reached an altitude of 71km before disintegrating. It said the launch was a clear violation of UN resolutions and warned the North not to act rashly.

With North Korea acting in defiance of the pressure, the United States could conduct new naval drills and deploy more ships and aircraft in the region, a US official told Reuters.

The dispatch of Carl Vinson to the waters off the Korean Peninsula is a "reckless action of the war maniacs aimed at an extremely dangerous nuclear war", the Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of North Korea's ruling Workers' Party, said in a commentary on Saturday.

Inter-continental ballistic rockets will fly into the United States "if the US shows any slight sign of provocation", the newspaper said.

More sanctions mooted

Kim Dong-yub, an expert at Kyungnam University's Institute of Far Eastern Studies in Seoul, said North Korea might have got the data it wanted with the missile's short flight, then blown it up in a bid to limit the anger of China, which warned Pyongyang against further provocation.

North Korea rattled world powers in February when it successfully launched a new intermediate-range ballistic missile that it said could carry a nuclear weapon. It also successfully tested ballistic missiles on March 6. 

It is not clear what has caused the series of failed missile tests since then.

The Trump administration could respond to the test by speeding up its plans for new US sanctions, including possible measures against specific North Korean and Chinese entities, said the US official, who declined to be identified.

"Something that's ready to go could be taken from the larger package and expedited," said the official.

The UN Security Council is likely to start discussing a statement to condemn the missile launch, said diplomats. 

But condemnations and sanctions resolutions since 2006, when North Korea conducted its first nuclear test, have done little to impede its push for ballistic missiles and nuclear arms.

The South Korean politician expected to win a May 9 presidential election, Moon Jae-in, called the test an "exercise in futility".

"We urge again the Kim Jong-un regime to immediately stop reckless provocative acts and choose the path to cooperate with the international community," Park Kwang-on, a spokesman for Moon, said in a statement, referring to the North Korean leader.

Moon has advocated a more moderate policy on the North and been critical of the deployment of an advanced US missile defence system in the South intended to counter North Korea's missile threat, which China also strongly objects to.

BEIJING/SEOUL — China on Thursday welcomed an apparently softer tone by the United States on the North Korean nuclear and missile crisis but stressed its opposition to a US missile defence system being deployed in South Korea.

China has long promoted dialogue to resolve the "Korean nuclear issue" as North Korea has repeatedly threatened to destroy the United States which in turn has warned that "all options are on the table" in ending North Korean provocations.

The Trump administration said on Wednesday it aimed to push North Korea into dismantling its nuclear and missile programmes, which are in violation of UN Security Council resolutions, through tougher international sanctions and diplomatic pressure.

"The United States seeks stability and the peaceful denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula. We remain open to negotiations towards that goal. However, we remain prepared to defend ourselves and our allies," it said in a statement.

Asked about the US comments, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Geng Shuang said China had noted that many US officials had recently made such remarks. 

"We have noted these expressions, and have noted the message conveyed in these expressions hoping to resolve the Korean nuclear issue peacefully through dialogue and consultation," he said.

"We believe this message is positive and should be affirmed." 

South Korea and the United States agreed on Thursday on "swift punitive measures" against North Korea in the event of further provocation. The South also said the deployment of a US anti-missile defence system was moving ahead effectively a day after angry protests against the battery and fierce opposition from China.

South Korea on Wednesday moved parts of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system to its deployment site on a golf course about 250km south of the capital, Seoul, signalling a faster installation of the system.

Several hundred South Korean villagers protested near the site, hurling water bottles at vehicles moving the parts in.

China again denounces THAAD

The top US Commander in the Pacific, Admiral Harry Harris, said on Wednesday the THAAD system would be operational "in coming days" bolstering the ability to defend the US ally and the 28,500 US troops stationed there.

A photograph taken of the site showed a THAAD interceptor on the back of a mobile launcher erected and pointed skywards on green lawn as a military transport helicopter hovered nearby.

China says the system's advanced radar can penetrate deep into its territory and undermine its security. It is adamant in its opposition.

"The deployment of the THAAD anti-missile system in South Korea damages the regional strategic balance and stability. The Chinese side is resolutely opposed to this," Defence Ministry Spokesman Yang Yujun told reporters.

"China's military will continue to carry out live-fire military exercises and test new military equipment in order to firmly safeguard national security and regional peace and stability." 

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Defence Secretary Jim Mattis and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats described North Korea on Wednesday as "an urgent national security threat and top foreign policy priority".

The US signal of a willingness to exhaust non-military avenues came as the USS Carl Vinson Aircraft Carrier group approached Korean waters, where it will join the USS Michigan Nuclear Submarine.

North Korea, which conducted its biggest ever artillery exercise to mark the 85th anniversary of its military's creation on Tuesday, says it needs to develop weapons to defend itself from US aggression.

A North Korean official speaking on CNN said the country would not be influenced by outside events.

"As long as America continues its hostile acts of aggression, we will never stop nuclear and missile tests," said Sok Chol-won, director of the North's Institute of Human Rights at the Academy of Social Sciences.

Moon Jae-in, the front-runner in South Korea's May 9 presidential election, has called for a delay in THAAD deployment, saying a decision should be made after gathering public opinion and more talks with Washington.

AMIENS, France — French presidential frontrunner Emmanuel Macron was booed and heckled with chants backing his far-right rival Marine Le Pen as he made a chaotic visit to an under-threat factory in the nation's rustbelt on Wednesday.

Some in the crowd shouted "President Marine!" and booed as the 39-year-old former banker arrived outside the Whirlpool appliance factory in the northern city of Amiens, where Le Pen had made an unannounced stop hours earlier.

"I am here to speak to you," the pro-business former economy minister told workers, ringed by a horde of cameramen and journalists. "Of course there is anger in this country, there is anxiety. Responsibility must be taken, that's why I'm here."

 The factory operated by Whirlpool, a US multinational company, is threatened with outsourcing to Poland.

Macron was in Amiens, his home town, to try to counter accusations that he had made a complacent start to campaigning for the presidential run-off on May 7. He finished ahead of Le Pen, 48, in the first round on Sunday.

A poll out on Wednesday suggested that Macron will defeat Le Pen by a margin of 21 points, but as the day's events showed, the far-right candidate is a vastly more experienced political campaigner.

And after the shocks of Britain's vote to leave the European Union and Donald Trump's unlikely ascent to the White House, analysts say a late surge by Le Pen is still possible.

Macron was also due to hold a rally in Arras, a city in the economically depressed north where Le Pen topped first-round voting.

While Macron had arranged to meet Whirlpool workers' union representatives without actually visiting the plant, Le Pen turned up unannounced outside the plant and posed for selfies with workers and attacked her rival.

"Everyone knows what side Emmanuel Macron is on — he is on the side of the corporations," Le Pen said.

"I am on the workers' side, here in the car park, not in restaurants in Amiens."

 As news broke of the Le Pen visit, Macron announced he would also go to the plant to meet with its employees.

After arriving, he told angry workers that the only reason that the anti-EU Le Pen had come was "because I'm here".

He also retorted on Twitter that she had spent "10 minutes with her supporters in a car park in front of the cameras" whereas he had spent "an hour and a half with union representatives and no media". Macron's visit came as a Harris Interactive poll showed 52 per cent of the French believe he botched the start of campaigning for the run-off.

After winning Sunday's contest with 24.1 per cent to Le Pen's 21.3 per cent, Macron gave an exuberant victory speech followed by a high-profile celebration at La Rotonde bistro in Paris, drawing criticism from some quarters.

Socialist Party boss Jean-Christophe Cambadelis told French radio: "He was smug. He wrongly thought that it was a done deal. It's not a done deal."

 President Francois Hollande appeared on Tuesday to admonish his former economy minister for not taking the fight to Le Pen immediately after the first round.

Macron shot back, saying: "I will continue to fight for two weeks... I will defend the progressive camp to the end."

 'Not a single vote' 

Since securing her berth in the run-off, Le Pen has turbo-charged her campaign with a string of appearances and statements, leaving her opponent on the back foot.

In contrast, her opponent convened strategy meetings about June's legislative elections that will determine the shape of a future Macron government.

Le Pen will hold a rally in the Riviera city of Nice on Thursday, a bastion of France's right that was targeted by a jihadist-inspired truck attack that killed 86 people last July.

Le Pen has called for France to take back control of its borders from the European Union and deport all foreigners on a terror watchlist, accusing Macron of being soft on security.

A key factor in the race is which candidate the supporters of Communist-backed Jean-Luc Melenchon, who finished in fourth place with 19.58 per cent on Sunday, will back in the run-off.

Melenchon faced criticism after he failed to urge people who voted for him to get behind Macron as part of the so-called "republican front", the decades-old French tactic of closing ranks to block the far-right.

Melenchon's France Insoumise (Unbowed France) movement is holding a consultation on which candidate to support, but his spokesman Alexis Corbiere said the hard-left firebrand would not endorse anyone.

Corbiere however told French TV channel LCI earlier on Wednesday that "for us the National Front is a danger" and urged viewers to not give "a single vote to the National Front". 

Le Pen said on Monday she was quitting temporarily as head of her National Front Party to concentrate on the campaign.