On Monday 15 April in Strasbourg, the Rassemblement national (RN) unveiled its manifesto and programme for the European elections, entitled “For a Europe of nations and peoples”.
The French party, which won the most MEP seats in 2014 for France, is again, according to an Ifop-Fiducial poll of 15 April for Paris Match, CNews and Sud Radio on the European elections, at the top of the voting list with 21.5% of the votes, on a par with La République en marche (liste Renaissance).
The RN project, not surprisingly, calls for border protection “through enhanced cooperation” between countries and with the restoration of controls at national borders, the removal of the logic of free movement under Schengen and the implementation of a “real policy of dissuasion of immigration”. It also wants to “lead and win the war against Islamism”.
The party gives pride of place to locals, with the need to put an end to free competition and to give priority to French companies and farmers in public procurement. The abandonment of free trade agreements in favour of simple renegotiable trade agreements is proposed. The party also opposes any social harmonisation that would lead to “the collapse of wages and purchasing power in Western Europe”. Ecology is also highlighted.
On the organisational side, the party opposes the abandonment of unanimous decision-making and emphasises enhanced cooperation with states that are free to participate or not.
It also wants to radically change the way the European Commission operates by transforming it into a standard-regulatory body backed by Parliament and responsible for implementing decisions. The EU Council would have exclusive right of legislative initiative and the European Parliament would have to implement the cooperation.
On the other hand, as the change of discourse over the past few months suggested, there will be no Frexit or abandonment of the euro on the agenda. "We made a change in our project at a time when a new solution is open, the situation of isolation is over and we see the emergence of allies with whom to profoundly change the EU from the inside," explained party president Marine Le Pen. “Before, we were quite alone, it was about submitting or leaving, today there is a new possibility before us,” she added.
Negotiations on a great sovereignist alliance
Ms Le Pen indicated that discussions were underway to form a large group in the next European Parliament. “We are not starting from scratch, we have a group in the European Parliament, a core on which we rely. We have the ambition to go much further and to have the strongest group possible”, she explained.
The President of the RN recalled that the Movement for a Europe of Nations and Freedom had many political forces that could enter the European Parliament. In addition, Matteo Salvini was mandated to discuss with members of the ECR and the EFDD to try to “form a very large group to defend European nations, which we could call sovereignist”, she added. Ms Le Pen welcomed Nigel Farage to the group, if he wishes to join. According to her, the point of agreement of all the members of the group will be to defend the will of the people. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant with MF)