Macron, Le Pen Cross Swords at Closing Whirlpool Plant in Northern France

AMIENS, France—French presidential candidates on Wednesday turned a Whirlpool Corp. factory slated for closure here into an impromptu stage for an ideological battle over how to revive the country’s declining industrial might.

Far-right candidate Marine Le Pen has made the plant’s looming closure a national rallying point for her antiglobalist, euroskeptic campaign. The Michigan-based appliance maker announced in January it would close the plant and move production to Poland, a European Union country where wages are a fraction what they are in France.

Her rival, centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron, held a scheduled meeting with Whirlpool union delegates behind closed doors in the center of Amiens. For 45 minutes he argued for his economic program, preaching the importance of free trade and of guarding France’s place in the EU.