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Here is a list of five National Front candidates whose faces have been plastered over the press for one reason or another in recent days - and it's a lot more than just racism and bigotry.

Damien Hameau-Brielles, the main candidate for Mayenne in the north west of France, posted a picture of himself on Facebook (see above) holding a gun to the head of a puppet version of President François Hollande.

While the picture, published in 2012, has long since been deleted, another post was dug out from the past where he made racist jibes about what he considered to be the laziness of "the blacks".

[...]

While the National Front doesn't have a candidate of its own in the Charente-Maritime department, western France, it is backing openly anti-Muslim Dominique Droin. The Frenchman has posted documents online about how Muslims have taken over France "without being armed, but through the stomachs of their wives". His paper pointed out that Muslim children "were multiplying much faster than children native to France".

Sophie Touvron is running for Torcy (Seine-et-Marne), east of Paris. She once shared a news story on her Facebook account about an explosion at a Halal butchery, adding the words "TOO GOOD". The L'Express newspaper reported that the explosion and subsequent fire left two people injured, one seriously.

In February, FN candidate in Narbonne, southern France, Fabien Rouquette took his regular Facebook postings a step too far when he shared a text-based image saying "Socialists, Communists, Muslims! Do something for the world and commit suicide." One of his colleagues in the area, Michèle Boisset, liked the post and added the comment "What a beautiful dream!" reported L'Express.