Hundreds of protesters say "no" to the extreme right in France

• Elections in France Macron resists Le Pen's push in the first assault

Several hundred protesters have taken to the streets of Paris and another thirty cities in France this Saturday to say "no to the extreme right".

The protests have expressed

, eight days before the second round of the presidential elections in which the leader of National Regroupment will oppose the president-candidate Emmanuel Macron.

"We are here to express our rejection of the extreme right. For society, for freedoms and also for the climate. It would be a real regression if it came to power", explained

, director of Greenpeace France, in the Parisian Place de la Nation, shortly before the departure of a protest march.

Demonstrations have been called throughout France by some thirty organizations and unions, including the Human Rights League, SOS Racism, CGT or the Magistracy Union.

Authorities expected some 15,000 people

across the country to follow the marches, including an estimated 4,000 in Paris alone.

Marine Le Pen offered statements to the press early this Saturday in Saint-Rémy-sur-Avre to point out that "demonstrating against the results of an election" is "deeply undemocratic".

"I think the French will find it distasteful to see their vote contested in the street, through demonstrations," she added.

Leading the protest in Paris, he waves a banner with the slogan: 'Against the extreme right, for justice and equality.

No to Le Pen at the Elysée". The militant of SOS Racismo

has lamented having to face "a Macron/Le Pen duel that the youth does not want.

If Marine Le Pen comes to power there will be fascist militias, liberticide laws," he warns.

"Our concerns are that the extreme right reaches the Elysee, we do not want Marine Le Pen in it. We are here to say: 'use your vote to prevent him from coming to power'. We do not say 'vote for Macron', but that is the price," confesses François Sauterey, co-president of Mrap.

Lucile Muller, a 19-year-old animation film student in Paris, claims to be at the demonstration "to answer the two candidates."

She believes that "it is not acceptable that we have to choose between Macron and Le Pen".

The Paris march is considered "risky"

by the authorities, who have deployed an important security device, given the possibility that "they are likely to host various protesters, such as yellow vests or members of the extreme left" .

In

, a rally is planned in the Old Port, not far from the Lighthouse, where Macron is planning a rally in the early afternoon.

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