PARIS: More than 30 French media outlets have signed a petition protesting against what they termed restricted access to far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen offered by her National Front party, organisers said on Friday.

The petition comes after a series of instances in which journalists were excluded from covering campaign events or the anti-EU, anti-immigrant candidate herself, who faces centrist Emmanuel Macron in the May 7 runoff.

“For second-round campaigning, the National Front has decided to choose which media are authorised to follow Marine Le Pen,” the petition says.

“Several outlets have had their representatives excluded from any information or any possibility to follow the National Front candidate,” it adds.

The petition was signed by Agence France-Presse and other major French media outlets including Le Monde and Le Figaro dailies, TF1 and BFM television channels as well as France Info radio.

“We protest in the strongest way against this hindrance to carrying out our duty to inform,” the petition says.

“It is not up to political structures, whatever they may be, to decide on which outlets are allowed to exercise their democratic role in society.”

French football star and Real Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane called on Friday on his countrymen to do their “utmost to avoid” voting Le Pen into office.

Le Pen is now engaged in a fierce run-off with her globalist rival and centrist front-runner Emmanuel Macron.

“The message is always the same, it’s that of 2002,” Zidane told reporters, referring to the year when then far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen — the current candidate’s father — reached the second round of France’s presidential elections.

That prompted many voters from the left and right to unite behind Jacques Chirac, the conservative rival in that runoff vote, to block Jean-Marie Le Pen from gaining power.

“I’m far from all those ideas, of the National Front,” Zidane, whose parents immigrated to France from Algeria, said during a press conference before Real Madrid plays Valencia on Saturday.

He added that people had to do their “utmost to avoid this. Extremes are never good,” without giving any specific voting indications.

Zidane had taken a similar stance in 2002, participating in a video against the far-right candidate with several other celebrities like actor Gerard Depardieu and musician Jean-Jacques Goldman.

Jean-Marie Le Pen had then countered that Zidane was being “manipulated by people who are using his fame.”