Posted on April 12, 2022, 2:00 PMUpdated on April 12, 2022 at 5:59 PM
The European Union does not appear in the official program of Marine Le Pen, among the large fifteen thematic booklets that further illuminate the project of the candidate of the extreme right. There is a chapter on heritage, another on the family and another on animal protection, but nothing about what has been the broadest aspect of French foreign policy for over fifty years.
The European Union is not for Marine Le Pen neither a goal nor a necessity. Rather a ball, an ailment from which it would be necessary to get rid of. Since 2017, it has given up leaving the euro and is now moving forward in secret, with a more subtle but just as radical positioning. In addition, if elected, she will begin removing the European flag from the pediment of all the country’s official buildings. The symbol couldn’t be clearer.
Europe on the map
If the European strategy is not treated as such in Marine Le Pen’s programme, every turn of her project raises the question of membership of the European Union.
To tackle the “migration immersion” that would be “organized” by Europe, Marine Le Pen, who fears being challenged in her desire to stop immigration by the European Court of Human Rights or the European Court of Justice, a referendum as soon as he is elected to change the constitution.
“I am describing the superiority of constitutional law over European law,” she explains. This fundamental development of our law will be applied not only in the field of immigration, but also in all matters, allowing France to reconcile its European commitment with the preservation of its sovereignty and the defense of its interests. †
It is clear that Marine Le Pen would like to benefit from a Europe à la carte, where she could choose the European decisions she likes and reject those that upset her, such as free trade agreements, social policy, enlargement, PAC, Frontex , defense , and so on.
The problem is that this referendum in itself – insofar as it gets a majority of the French votes – is contrary to the treaties. “The inclusion of this national primacy in the Constitution is unconstitutional from a European point of view,” explains Christine Verger, Vice-President of the Jacques-Delors Institute.
Badly put together puzzle
“It is absurd, adds Jean-Louis Bourlanges, centrist deputy and chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Assembly, if you affirm the superiority of national law over European law, you no longer have European law! Marine Le Pen has given up on an official departure from Europe, but her program is simply incompatible with keeping France in the Union. †
His pledge to prioritize employment, social assistance and social housing only for the French would not only question the “principles of equality and fraternity” of the republican pact, as the constitutionalist Dominique Rousseau did. It is also incompatible with the European treaties that organize the free movement of persons and access to jobs in all Member States of the Union.
The restoration of lost borders – except recent abnormalities for terrorism and the Covid – as the Schengen agreements are systematically praised in the polls, would also violate European rules.
Other proposals are trivially incoherent, such as the desire to finance its social expenses by reducing France’s contribution to the Union budget. “It is simply impossible, the multi-year budget has already been voted for the 2021-2027 period,” Christine Verger recalls. Marine Le Pen therefore has no influence to change it in depth. If France insisted, says Yves Bertoncini, President of the European Movement France, “the Commission would delete the CAP funds of which it is the main beneficiary”, he assures us.
These poorly put together puzzle pieces show that all the principles on which France built its economic, political and legal environment since the end of the war and the Treaty of Rome have been abandoned.
Permanently isolated
Contrary to what it claims, it has no allies in Europe for an illusory configuration of a Europe of nations that would be ruled by the veto. His approach, never materialized by creation of a parliamentary group, with Matteo Salvini, the head of the League in Italy, and the Hungarian leaders, Viktor Orbán, and Poland, Mateusz Morawiecki, has finally broken with Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, which is more isolated than ever.
In the current geopolitical context, his arrival at the Elysée would mean a rift with even more serious consequences. Her close political relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose model she praised not so long ago, and her reaffirmed desire to negotiate with him over Europe’s security architecture, would plunge the Twenty-seven into an abyss of disorder as they tried to maintain their cohesion. against the Russian aggressor at all costs.
