NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said he was convinced in Brussels on Thursday that France would remain a “strong and important” ally regardless of its next government.
“I expect France to remain a strong and important ally in the future,” Mr. Stoltenberg said, when asked about his possible concerns about the outcome of the upcoming legislative elections.
“Experience proves that NATO allies have always managed to remain united regardless of the different parties in power and the different majorities in parliaments,” he added.
“Whatever the outcome of the elections, I consider that France is an integral part of NATO, anything else would be difficult to explain, but here again, we simply have to wait and see,” declared the German minister for his part. of Defense Boris Pistorius, before a meeting in Brussels with his counterparts from the Atlantic Alliance.
Having come first in the European elections in France, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally has always demanded France’s exit from the integrated command of the Atlantic Alliance. The president of the party, Jordan Bardella, however indicated that this withdrawal was now conditional on the “stabilization” of “the situation in Ukraine”.
On Wednesday, French President Emmanuel Macron castigated the ambiguities of the RN towards Russia, and its desire to “leave NATO”.
France left the integrated command of NATO in 1966, under the presidency of Charles de Gaulle, in the name of national sovereignty, before reintegrating it in 2007 by the will of the President of the Republic Nicolas Sarkozy.
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