Valérie Pécresse rally focuses on immigration as threat from rivals grows

Valérie Pécresse told the audience in Paris she was willing to support building walls around parts of Europe to keep out migrants. Photograph: Benoît Tessier/Reuters

The rightwing French presidential candidate Valérie Pécresse vowed to crack down on immigration as she held her first big rally on Sunday amid competition from the growing far right and defections from her party to the centrist leader Emmanuel Macron.

“There is no sovereignty without borders,” Pécresse said on stage in Paris as more than 6,000 people waved French flags in support of the first female presidential candidate for Les Républicains, the traditional rightwing party of Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy.