A popular French TV show cancelled its Thursday night broadcast after French far-right leader Marine Le Pen refused to attend following complaints she had been invited as top guest too many times.

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“Des Paroles et des Actes” (“Words and Actions”), broadcast by France 2 and hosted by journalist David Pujadas, has featured Le Pen as its principal guest four times, a record for any French politician.

But her fifth invitation for Thursday night’s show, just weeks before a crucial election in which she is expected to win the presidency of France’s Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie region, enraged the ruling Socialists and conservative opposition Les Républicains, led by former president Nicolas Sarkozy.

In a rare show of unity, the two parties demanded that France 2 inject some political balance into the primetime talk show, which regularly attracts more than two million viewers, because it is so close to the regional elections due on October 26.

Following an official complaint to France’s TV watchdog the CSA, France 2 announced that Thursday’s programme would include candidates from both the Socialists and Les Républicains who are opposing Le Pen in the regional poll.

But for Le Pen, the turnaround was a “farce”, and later on Thursday she announced she would not attend.

“The amateurism and servility of Mr Pujadas has turned this programme into a pantomime,” she said in a statement just three hours before the programme was due to be broadcast.

“Why should I agree to appear on the show at the last minute just to satisfy the demands of a co-ordinated move by my opponents,” she added.

Her last-minute refusal to attend threw such a spanner in the works that France 2 was forced to cancel the show.

“We have to cancel it because we are missing a candidate,” the channel said in a statement, arguing that without Le Pen the show had lost the necessary political balance.

France 2 viewers will have three episodes of US police series Rizzoli & Isles to watch instead.

Regional elections are due on October 26, and Le Pen is leading in the polls in the large northern region around Calais.

On Thursday night, Le Pen was roundly criticised for refusing to appear on the show in front of her opponents on the popular debate show.

François Fillon, who was prime minister under Sarkozy, told BFMTV that “when you are a candidate in an election, you cannot refuse to debate against other candidates.”

Alexis Corbière, general secretary of the far-left Front de Gauche, tweeted: “Purely to promote herself, Marine Le Pen has ditched a programme that has pampered her and raised her profile. She's not just disgusting, she's also ungrateful.”

(FRANCE 24 with AFP and REUTERS)

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