French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has said she will run for a seat in June's parliamentary elections as she bids to make her National Front party the leading opposition.
In her first public appearance since her crushing May 7 defeat in the presidential election, Ms Le Pen said in a television interview that she will run to represent her northern bastion of Henin-Beaumont.
Forces of division have been closing in on Ms Le Pen since her electoral loss to centrist Emmanuel Macron, but she dismissed the notion that there were links between her loss and a series of events widely seen as potentially weakening her party.
Of the National Front, she said: "We are in reality the only opposition movement ... (with) an essential role to play."
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