French far-right 'homeless' man is American

The French National Front was left red-faced this week after it emerged that a photo it used in its posters of a man made "homeless" by President Nicolas Sarkozy's policies was actually a US model.

Another photo used by presidential candidate Marine Le Pen's party of a derelict factory -- to denounce Sarkozy's industrial strategy -- turned out to be a a picture of a building in the Northern Irish town of Lurgan.

A spokesman from the anti-immigrant party told AFP that the use of the photos did not mean that it had abandoned its policy of "national preference", which is supposed to favour French nationals over foreigners.

He said the party had no plans to replace the photos and claimed they used the one of the American pretending to be homeless because "we have the decency not to photograph people in the street who are unfortunate."

The "homeless" photo, from a series of a man striking various poses, was from a US stock photo website where it is still on sale for two dollars.
The factory photo was taken from the online photo-sharing service Flickr.
AFP
 

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