Marine Le Pen, France's National Front political party
Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s far-right National Front party, says the EU is to blame for the crisis in Ukraine as it forced the situation where Kiev had to choose between East and West.
Now that France is joining sanctions against Russia over the alleged direct interference in the political crisis in Ukraine and Paris is considering suspending the €1.2 billion deal of two Mistral helicopter carrier ships ordered by Russia, the leader of the biggest parliamentary faction of the French parliament has her own opinion on Ukraine’s turmoil.
“The crisis in Ukraine is all the European Union’s fault. Its leaders negotiated a trade deal with Ukraine, which essentially blackmailed the country to choose between Europe and Russia,” Le Pen told Le Monde daily in an interview.
Le Pen has been a long-standing critic of Europe’s foreign policy and does not see how Ukraine could join the bloc.
“The European Union's diplomacy is a catastrophe,” Le Pen told RT's Sophie Shevardnadze in an exclusive interview in June.
“The EU speaks out on foreign affairs either to create problems, or to make them worse.”
“Ukraine’s entry into the European Union; no need to tell fairy tales: Ukraine absolutely does not have the economic level to join the EU,” Le Pen told RT.
In her fresh interview with Le Monde, the National Front leader had a positive attitude towards Russian President Vladimir Putin and the economic model he builds.
“I have a certain admiration for the man [Putin]. He proposes a patriotic economic model, radically different than what the Americans are imposing on us,” said Marine Le Pen.
As for France’s decision to suspend the delivery of the first of two Mistral helicopter carrier ships to Russia, it only shows Paris’ obedience of American diplomacy, Marine Le Pen said earlier.
"This decision (not to deliver Mistral ships) is very serious, firstly because it runs contrary to the interests of the country and shows our obedience of American diplomacy," Le Pen told France’s RTL radio.
France’s National Front and its leader Marine Le Pen, a party renowned for its anti-immigrant and anti-EU rhetoric, achieved unprecedented results at the latest EU elections, claiming nearly 25 percent of the votes and winning the election.
“Our people demand one type of politics: they want politics by the French, for the French, with the French. They don’t want to be led anymore from outside, to submit to laws.” These were the National Front’s slogans that garnered a quarter of French voters earlier this year.
President Francois Hollande’s popularity in France has hit a record low – just over 13 percent, according to estimates from the TNS-Sofres pollster, reported Reuters on Thursday.
Full of confidence, the National Front leader Marine Le Pen has no doubt she can head the national government today.
“I’m ready to be prime minister and implement the policies that the French are waiting for,” she said. “Hollande would be the president for representation and inauguration ceremonies, but that’s it. The government decides the policies and the political path to follow. He would have to submit to it, or he would have to go,” Le Pen told Le Monde.
