GETTY Presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has hit out at Francois Hollande's migrant policy

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Mrs Le Pen promised to put interests of French nationals “first” if elected head of state in the spring in the interview with radio station RTL today. The controversial politician cited the weeks-long cold wave which has seen temperatures drop well below freezing nationwide, and said that government officials were doing more for migrants than they had ever done for France’s homeless.

She said: “We are giving migrants beds but ignoring the needs of homeless French people, who are being turned away from emergency shelters and who are being forced to sleep outside in the freezing cold. “It’s unbelievable and disgusting; and just one of the consequences of the government’s irresponsible refugee policy.”

GETTY She claimed French officials are doing more for migrants than for homeless people

Mrs Le Pen added she had “chosen to protect the French” and not immigrants, because “they are the ones who desperately need our full and total support”.

We are giving migrants beds but ignoring the needs of homeless French people Marine Le Pen

The pro-Trump hardliner added all legal immigrants should have resided in France for “at least two years” before receiving free healthcare. She said: “There should be an official waiting period of two years. Immigrants – legal ones – should not be given immediate access to welfare. “Your host country should not have to support you financially. There are many French people living in the US, Germany, and Australia, and they do not expect the US, German, and Australian government to pay their medical bills and children’s school fees.”

GETTY Mrs Le Pen also called her presidential rival Emmanuel Macron a political 'imposter'

Migrants clash with police across Europe Wed, February 15, 2017 Migrants clash with each other in over crowded camps across Europe. Play slideshow EPA 1 of 107 Moroccan Police look at immigrants trying to jump the six-meter-high fence in Ceuta, Spanish enclave on the north of Africa, 09 December 2016.