Insight
What would President Le Pen mean for Europe? A manifesto for trouble by Ian Bond and John Springford, 11 April 2022 Marine Le Pen has dropped her referendum on the euro, but her ‘France first’ agenda would cripple the EU from the inside and weaken the transatlantic alliance. For months, Europe complacently assumed that Emmanuel Macron would win France’s April 2022 presidential election, with Marine Le Pen, leader of the right-wing populist Rassemblement National, making it to the second round on April 24th but without threatening Macron. The result of the first round of voting on April 10th, however, shows that the race between the two has tightened considerably – to the point where Le Pen has a realistic chance of winning. Were she to do so, the impact on the EU, NATO and European security would be profoundly destabilising. In the 2017 election, Le Pen’s promise to hold a referendum on France’s euro membership was ill-timed. It came two years after a Greek referendum led to another recession there. And the eurozone was beginning a two-year boomlet that undercut her message that the French could only prosper without the euro. She made it to the second round of the presidential election, but was easily beaten by Macron. Five years later, Le Pen is no longer promising a euro referendum, but her euroscepticism endures. Her new strategy follows the tactics of the Polish and Hungarian governments: refuse to apply EU laws that she dislikes, especially those that prevent her from favouring French citizens over those of other member-states. The difference is that France (unlike Poland, Hungary or indeed the UK) is indispensable to the EU. In her manifesto, ‘My plan for the presidency’, Le Pen writes little about the EU, apart from some barbs at the Commission and the European Court of Justice (ECJ). She makes a commitment to a “European Alliance of Nations which is intended to gradually replace the European Union”, but she does not seem sure she will succeed or who will be in it. She writes that the contacts she has made in other memberstates, “including several heads of government, give me hope that this project will succeed in the medium-term.” In some policy areas, Le Pen seeks reforms at the European level. She promises to renegotiate the Schengen agreement, which provides for passport-free travel between 26 European countries, arguing CER INSIGHT: What would President Le Pen mean for Europe? A manifesto for trouble 11 April 2022
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