Guadeloupe protest over Le Pen stopover

Demonstrators on the French West Indian island of Guadeloupe blocked off the check-in desks of airlines in the main commercial centre, Pointe-a-Pitre, on Saturday to protest against a planned stopover by French National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, AFP news agency reported.

It said Le Pen was on holiday in the area and was due to return to Paris via Pointe-a-Pitre.

It said large numbers of police had been deployed, together with a number of armoured vehicles.

BBC Monitoring (http://www.monitor.bbc.co.uk), based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.