Before the European elections, franceinfo receives the head lists of French parties.
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Jordan Bardella, president of the National Rally, and head of the RN list in the European elections was the guest of Demain l’Europe on Friday March 22. He responded to Agathe Lambret, Jean-Rémi Baudot, Renaud Dély, Paolo Levy, from the Italian press agency ANSA, and Britta Sandberg, head of the Paris bureau of the German newspaper Spiegel.
“The interests of the French are no longer defended at the European level”
Head of the RN list in the European elections, Jordan Bardella is often criticized for his poor record as a parliamentarian since 2019. The president of the RN denies this: “Since 2019, I have fulfilled the role entrusted to me by the French: to be their eyes, their ears and their voice in the hemicycle of the European Parliament, where I am one of the most diligent French MEPs.” According to him, the European deputies of the National Rally fought “texts harmful to the interests of the French: Green Deal, punitive ecology policy, and pact for immigration”. He deplores that “the interests of the French [soient] more defended at European level”declaring “not deconstruct Europe, but build that of the 21st century.”
No question of leaving the EU while the RN “is winning the game”
“I don’t want to leave the European Union because when we’re winning the game, we don’t leave the game table,” explains Jordan Bardella, while the RN was still recently defending a sort of Frexit and a exit from Europe. He now defends an à la carte Europe, an alliance “between free, sovereign nations”.
“I want European cooperation which is free cooperation, between sovereign nations, says Jordan Bardella, about his vision of the European Union. But I defend priority for our companies in public procurement.”
Sending troops to Ukraine: “The President of the Republic is freewheeling”
“The President of the Republic is freewheeling”, “be careful of the escalation”, denounces Jordan Bardella after Emmanuel Macron’s controversial statements on a possible sending of ground troops. The head of state once again affirmed on Saturday in Le Parisien-Today in France that Western operations on the ground in Ukraine might be necessary “at one point”. Jordan Bardella judges these “extremely worrying comments, anxiety-provoking for the French” and accuses Emmanuel Macron of “play climbing”. The president of the National Rally fears that such comments could “contribute to a frontal war with Russia”. “We have no interest in going to war with a nuclear power. We must be extremely vigilant.”
Jordan Bardella says to himself favorable to sanctions that can work, unfavorable to those that cannot work., about the measures taken against Russia. “I am in favor of supporting Ukraine, France’s role is to help Ukraine hold the front.”
Re-election of Vladimir Putin: “I think that the position of French diplomacy is the right one”
“Is Russia a democratic regime? Obviously not”, according to Jordan Bardella. For him, “Vladimir Putin is in this very, very self-centered incarnation of power. I think that the position held by French diplomacy and the Quai d’Orsay is the right one: not necessarily to congratulate the election of President Putin, but to take note of it, because he is the representative of the Russian Federation. And if tomorrow there have to be negotiations, they will be done with him.” The president of the RN, on the other hand, rejects any form of collusion with Russia: “There was a collective naivety with regard to President Putin’s intentions. They are trying to make us, the right or the National Rally, bear this responsibility. But the first foreign president to have been received in 2017 by Emmanuel Macron at the Palace of Versailles is Vladimir Putin.”
“Today there is social immigration in France”
Questioned by Paolo Levi, journalist for the Italian press agency ANSA, on the possibility of debt mutualization for a European recovery plan, Jordan Bardella prefers to ironically: “The recovery plan is great, you give 100 euros, it gives you 50 back and tells you how to use it. And the condition of this recovery plan was pension reform: with Brussels, there are always conditions.” Faced with France’s budgetary situation, he accuses Emmanuel Macron of having “ruined the country”. For him, the way to confront the debt is “the hunt for waste”. “We must break a taboo, there is today in France a social window immigration. If we come to the head of state, we will limit social benefits to French citizens only.”
According to Jordan Bardella, France must face a “migratory submergence”. “I came from elsewhere but I came from here (…) I made the republican effort, which is assimilation, but many of those who arrive today seem a little exempt from this effort .” According to him, Europe is weighing on France “the risk of disappearance and erasure” as long as “European institutions will consider immigration not as a problem, but as a project.”