Marine Le Pen promotes security alliance with Russia as soon as war in Ukraine is over
[b]The far-right candidate in France advocates a radical shift that would end military cooperation with Berlin and replace the EU with an alliance of nations.[/b]
Europe is facing a shock if Marine Le Pen wins the French presidential elections on April 24 against the current president, Emmanuel Macron. In the midst of the war in Ukraine, a political figure who for years has declared her admiration for the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, and today is running for a party indebted to a Russian bank, would conquer the heart of Europe. The candidate of the French extreme right promotes a security alliance with Moscow as soon as the war is over. And she wants to liquidate the current European Union to transform it into an alliance of nations.
"France is not a middle power, but a great power that still counts," Le Pen said Wednesday at a press conference interrupted by a woman protesting her ties to Putin, who was forcefully evicted by security guards. "My only compass," she added, "is the interest of France, and its security."
The candidate does not propose an explicit break with the European Union or NATO. But her program, if implemented, would represent a radical shift in the position of France, a country central to the common project and endowed with a nuclear weapon and a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. With its proposal to close a future alliance with Russia, it threatens to dynamite Western unity at the moment of greatest tension in decades and in the midst of Russia's bombings and attacks in Ukraine.
In a speech on Tuesday in Strasbourg, the European capital, his rival in the elections, Macron, warned: "The project of the extreme right hides the exit from Europe". The president, who five years ago conquered power with a pro-European message, now warns against "the return of nationalism and the return of war" which, in his opinion, would mean the triumph of Le Pen.
Macron, at this stage of the campaign, is trying to point out the ideological identity of his rival and the risks he poses to France and Europe. Meanwhile, all Le Pen's efforts are focused on softening her image and avoiding being scary.
For Bertrand Badie, professor emeritus at Science Po and author of Les puissances mondialisées, "it is absolutely obvious that Putin dreams of a Le Pen victory". "If Marine Le Pen wins, Putin will be doubly happy," says Badie. "First, because in France the personality closest to him will come to power. And second, it would paralyze the EU and NATO, it would cause the weakening of the Western front."
The candidate of the extreme right in her speech charged against Germany, founding partner with France of the European Union, and gave for buried the military cooperation between the two countries: the Franco-German engine does not enter in none of her diplomatic calculations. His alliances are different. In his project of an "alliance of nations", in which national law would prevail over European law, he wants to count on allies such as Viktor Orbán's Hungary or the ultra-conservative Poland of PiS.
[b]Out of NATO military command[/b]
The Atlantic Alliance is another of its objectives. She does not intend to abandon it entirely. But with the argument of "non-submission to an American protectorate on European soil", Le Pen announced that, if she wins the elections, France will leave NATO's integrated military command, which it rejoined in 2009 after General de Gaulle took the country out of the Alliance in 1966.
In her electoral program, Le Pen already explained that "an alliance will be sought with Russia on substantive issues", citing, among others, European security and the fight against terrorism. Before the press, the candidate specified that this alliance should be forged when a peace treaty has been signed between Ukraine and Russia. She included NATO, an institution which, after decades of disorientation following the end of the Cold War, she believes has regained its meaning with the war in Ukraine and Putin's threat to Europe.
Le Pen has for years maintained close ties with Putin. She visited him in the Kremlin during the 2017 campaign and declared her admiration. In a television interview, she said, "The great political lines that I defend are the great political lines defended by Mr. [Donald] Trump and by Mr. Putin." Her party, the National Rally, is indebted to a Russian bank that financed it in the past decade.
And yet the far-right leader has so far emerged unscathed from the Russian invasion of Ukraine during an election campaign more focused on the economic effects of the war for the French than on the war itself. In the first round of the election, on April 10, she was the second most voted candidate, behind Macron, and qualified to contest the presidency against Macron.
In 2017, Macron won with 66% of votes. She got 34%. Polls now show a narrower margin. The current president would win with 53% of votes against Le Pen's 47%, according to the Ifop institute. Ipsos widens the gap a bit: 55% to 45% for Macron.
On the campaign trail, Le Pen relativizes her closeness to Moscow. She says that, if her party got into debt with a Russian bank, it was because no French bank wanted to lend her money. When asked about her proposal for a security alliance with Russia, she invokes a tradition of French diplomacy equidistant between the powers. And she replies that also Macron, by receiving Putin in 2019 on the Côte d'Azur in 2019, also aspired, like her, to "bring Russia closer" to Europe.
It is a question, for the candidate, of maintaining the sovereigntist message, Eurosceptic and contrary to NATO and to the influence of the United States: a message that also appeals to the decisive voters of the populist left of Jean-Luc Mélenchon. And, at the same time, to ward off the specter of violent ruptures that may scare off the more moderate voter. "Marine Le Pen", analyzes Professor Badie, "is inscribed in the national-populist current of Trump, Orbán, Matteo Salvini or the Polish PiS. The national-populist code is what makes it possible to decrypt his international policy program."
In the 2017 presidential election, held less than a year after the Brexit referendum in the UK, Le Pen promised Frexit and an exit from the euro. These were not popular promises. She has now rectified. But it seems to be more a question of method than objectives. Badie believes that, if Le Pen were to win, "there would be no decision to leave the EU or the euro, but she would fuel her popularity with a blockade policy, on the model of Orbán in Hungary. He would say to farmers, fishermen, French workers: 'I defend your interests in Brussels'".
"I repeat: [Frexit] is not our project," Le Pen said Wednesday. "We want to reform the EU from within. But the more we free ourselves from the straitjacket of Brussels, even if we remain in the EU, the more we will look out into the vast world. It seems to me that the English got it right." The goal: to free ourselves from European laws and build "a Europe respectful of sovereign nations." "To transform the EU into an alliance of nations," he said, "is to save Europe."
Translated with DeepL:
https://elpais.com/internacional/2022-04-13/marine-le-pen-promueve-una-alianza-de-seguridad-con-rusia-en-cuanto-acabe-la-guerra-en-ucrania.html
Europe is facing a shock if Marine Le Pen wins the French presidential elections on April 24 against the current president, Emmanuel Macron. In the midst of the war in Ukraine, a political figure who for years has declared her admiration for the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, and today is running for a party indebted to a Russian bank, would conquer the heart of Europe. The candidate of the French extreme right promotes a security alliance with Moscow as soon as the war is over. And she wants to liquidate the current European Union to transform it into an alliance of nations.
"France is not a middle power, but a great power that still counts," Le Pen said Wednesday at a press conference interrupted by a woman protesting her ties to Putin, who was forcefully evicted by security guards. "My only compass," she added, "is the interest of France, and its security."
The candidate does not propose an explicit break with the European Union or NATO. But her program, if implemented, would represent a radical shift in the position of France, a country central to the common project and endowed with a nuclear weapon and a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. With its proposal to close a future alliance with Russia, it threatens to dynamite Western unity at the moment of greatest tension in decades and in the midst of Russia's bombings and attacks in Ukraine.
In a speech on Tuesday in Strasbourg, the European capital, his rival in the elections, Macron, warned: "The project of the extreme right hides the exit from Europe". The president, who five years ago conquered power with a pro-European message, now warns against "the return of nationalism and the return of war" which, in his opinion, would mean the triumph of Le Pen.
Macron, at this stage of the campaign, is trying to point out the ideological identity of his rival and the risks he poses to France and Europe. Meanwhile, all Le Pen's efforts are focused on softening her image and avoiding being scary.
For Bertrand Badie, professor emeritus at Science Po and author of Les puissances mondialisées, "it is absolutely obvious that Putin dreams of a Le Pen victory". "If Marine Le Pen wins, Putin will be doubly happy," says Badie. "First, because in France the personality closest to him will come to power. And second, it would paralyze the EU and NATO, it would cause the weakening of the Western front."
The candidate of the extreme right in her speech charged against Germany, founding partner with France of the European Union, and gave for buried the military cooperation between the two countries: the Franco-German engine does not enter in none of her diplomatic calculations. His alliances are different. In his project of an "alliance of nations", in which national law would prevail over European law, he wants to count on allies such as Viktor Orbán's Hungary or the ultra-conservative Poland of PiS.
[b]Out of NATO military command[/b]
The Atlantic Alliance is another of its objectives. She does not intend to abandon it entirely. But with the argument of "non-submission to an American protectorate on European soil", Le Pen announced that, if she wins the elections, France will leave NATO's integrated military command, which it rejoined in 2009 after General de Gaulle took the country out of the Alliance in 1966.
In her electoral program, Le Pen already explained that "an alliance will be sought with Russia on substantive issues", citing, among others, European security and the fight against terrorism. Before the press, the candidate specified that this alliance should be forged when a peace treaty has been signed between Ukraine and Russia. She included NATO, an institution which, after decades of disorientation following the end of the Cold War, she believes has regained its meaning with the war in Ukraine and Putin's threat to Europe.
Le Pen has for years maintained close ties with Putin. She visited him in the Kremlin during the 2017 campaign and declared her admiration. In a television interview, she said, "The great political lines that I defend are the great political lines defended by Mr. [Donald] Trump and by Mr. Putin." Her party, the National Rally, is indebted to a Russian bank that financed it in the past decade.
And yet the far-right leader has so far emerged unscathed from the Russian invasion of Ukraine during an election campaign more focused on the economic effects of the war for the French than on the war itself. In the first round of the election, on April 10, she was the second most voted candidate, behind Macron, and qualified to contest the presidency against Macron.
In 2017, Macron won with 66% of votes. She got 34%. Polls now show a narrower margin. The current president would win with 53% of votes against Le Pen's 47%, according to the Ifop institute. Ipsos widens the gap a bit: 55% to 45% for Macron.
On the campaign trail, Le Pen relativizes her closeness to Moscow. She says that, if her party got into debt with a Russian bank, it was because no French bank wanted to lend her money. When asked about her proposal for a security alliance with Russia, she invokes a tradition of French diplomacy equidistant between the powers. And she replies that also Macron, by receiving Putin in 2019 on the Côte d'Azur in 2019, also aspired, like her, to "bring Russia closer" to Europe.
It is a question, for the candidate, of maintaining the sovereigntist message, Eurosceptic and contrary to NATO and to the influence of the United States: a message that also appeals to the decisive voters of the populist left of Jean-Luc Mélenchon. And, at the same time, to ward off the specter of violent ruptures that may scare off the more moderate voter. "Marine Le Pen", analyzes Professor Badie, "is inscribed in the national-populist current of Trump, Orbán, Matteo Salvini or the Polish PiS. The national-populist code is what makes it possible to decrypt his international policy program."
In the 2017 presidential election, held less than a year after the Brexit referendum in the UK, Le Pen promised Frexit and an exit from the euro. These were not popular promises. She has now rectified. But it seems to be more a question of method than objectives. Badie believes that, if Le Pen were to win, "there would be no decision to leave the EU or the euro, but she would fuel her popularity with a blockade policy, on the model of Orbán in Hungary. He would say to farmers, fishermen, French workers: 'I defend your interests in Brussels'".
"I repeat: [Frexit] is not our project," Le Pen said Wednesday. "We want to reform the EU from within. But the more we free ourselves from the straitjacket of Brussels, even if we remain in the EU, the more we will look out into the vast world. It seems to me that the English got it right." The goal: to free ourselves from European laws and build "a Europe respectful of sovereign nations." "To transform the EU into an alliance of nations," he said, "is to save Europe."
Translated with DeepL:
https://elpais.com/internacional/2022-04-13/marine-le-pen-promueve-una-alianza-de-seguridad-con-rusia-en-cuanto-acabe-la-guerra-en-ucrania.html
36-40, M
