She will be the candidate for “the regained freedom of Nations” or the builder of “a European alliance of Nations”. It was in these terms that the president of the French National Rally, Marine Le Pen, set out her ambitions for the May 2019 European elections at France Inter on Tuesday 13 November.
This is not really the rhetoric to which we were accustomed by the far-right candidate in the 2017 French presidential elections, where she advocated France's exit from the European Union and the euro zone.
And Marine Le Pen herself readily admits it. "The situation has changed (...) Yesterday, we had no other choice. We did not have such powerful allies in Europe to change the European Union. So it was: either we submitted to the European Union (...) or we left it”, she explained.
A clear reference to the rise of extreme parties in Europe and, of course, to its main ally, the Italian Minister of the Interior, Matteo Salvini (see EUROPE 12112). "This shift in political weight now allows us to effectively consider transforming the European Union into a ‘European alliance of nations’", she continued.
In concrete terms, it proposes a minimum form of organisation where ‘"you are not obliged to be imposed decisions that go against your interests’.
According to her vision, the Commission would then become “a simple secretariat of the Council”. On the other hand, the European Parliament could be maintained and even given the power to initiate legislation, since the Commission would no longer exist.
As for the common rules, Mrs Le Pen is not fundamentally opposed to them. “There are a whole series of areas in which nations can - and, in my opinion, should - cooperate”, she said, but only if everyone is free to participate and, above all, to leave. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)