Marine Le Pen rally T-shirts made in Bangladesh

Souvenir T-shirts, which were sold at French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen's meeting in Villepinte, northeastern suburbs of Paris, this week were made in Bangladesh.

Many of her supporters were shocked to discover this as Le Pen consistently championed "made in France" as a key pillar of her economic programme, reports The Independent.

Labels on most the polo shirts, which were on sale at Ms Le Pen's meeting had all been cut out, preventing buyers from finding out where the clothes were made, according to the report.

But reporters from BFM TV found the shirt displayed on a mannequin had an untouched label stating the piece of clothing had been made in Bangladesh.

Asked whether the shirts were not a contradiction to Ms Le Pen's campaign pledges, the stall holder selling the memorabilia said the embroidery work had been done in France.

"This is not at all contradictory to Ms Le Pen's programme because we are asking for products to be made in France and the embroidery work on the T-shirts was made in France," he told the TV station.

"So the finished work was made in France. The problem for the supplier was a problem of workforce, which was not competitive enough to make in France. This is why we are fighting for French production lines."

Asked whether he could explain why the labels had been cut from every single T-shirts, the vendor said he could not answer the question.

Ms Le Pen stepped down as leader of the far right Front National party last week, claiming it would allow her to represent better the interests of "all French people".

Earlier, supporters of US President Donald Trump were stunned in the same way after they found Trump's trademark red "Make America Great Again" baseball caps were made in Bangladesh, China, and Vietnam.

The far right presidential candidate has repeatedly said she would defend French interests against globalisation and the relocation of factories abroad.