The most popular of France's presidential candidates, Emmanuel Macron, took a stance against anti-refugee sentiment in an interview with German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung, which was published on Monday.
The 39-year-old politician voiced admiration for Angela Merkel and Germany for their handling of the refugee crisis.
"Chancellor Merkel and the German society as a whole were up to the mark of our joint values," he said. "They saved our collective dignity by taking in refugees and providing them with accommodation and education." [...]
Macron quit Hollande's cabinet to run for president in April this year. Although he is very popular among the voters and has a roughly 35-percent approval rating, the former investment banker would need to contend both with competition from the well-established parties and Marine Le Pen, who is running on the far-right Front National ticket. [...]
Macron, who resigned as economy minister under Socialist President Francois Hollande in August, called for boosting Frontex, the agency responsible for protecting the EU's outside borders. He also chided Berlin and Paris for not supporting Italy during the early years of the refugee crisis, when thousands of immigrants started pouring onto the island of Lampedusa.
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