Make France Great Again Hat Marine Le Pen
On Sun, the people of France will elect their next president. If they brand the incorrect selection, they could weaken the European Union, evangelize a deadly accident to NATO, and provide succor to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
French President Emmanuel Macron won the get-go round of the election with 27.8 percentage of the vote. His extreme-right opponent, Marine Le Pen, received 23.1 percent. Since then, Macron has received back up from many notables on the right and the left, including his predecessors former presidents Nicolas Sarkozy, of Les Républicains, a conservative party, and François Hollande, of the moderate-left Socialist Party. One might call back that should make for an easy victory for Macron in the terminal election.
But polls in France tell another story. Without a tie to a major party on the right or left, Macron has undergone five years of political attacks from both sides but peculiarly from two parties on the left: La France Insoumise (LFI), whose proper name translates to France Unbowed, and the Greens. Combined, the two won more than votes than Le Pen and slightly fewer than Macron. Fifty-fifty if political party leaders recommend Macron or, at least, do not support Le Pen, surveys propose party members may not follow their atomic number 82. On the contrary, it seems that voters aligned with LFI and the Greens may prefer to stay neutral past, possibly, not voting at all. Seen in that light, Macron's lead looks shaky. A surprise on election 24-hour interval is entirely possible.
If Marine Le Pen is elected equally president of France, it volition create a shock that would shake the globe.
The links betwixt Le Pen and Putin are worrying. Five years ago, Putin officially received her in Moscow and declared his support. At the time, Le Pen's party, which was and so called National Forepart but is now known every bit National Rally, took a loan from a Russian bank, the First Czech-Russian Banking company. Later, the debt was resold to Aviazapchast, a firm run by one-time Russian military personnel. That debt seems to remain unpaid, and Le Pen's financial ties to Russia continue. In addition, the political links are axiomatic, with Le Pen regularly visiting Putin in Russia. In February 2022, one of Le Pen'southward campaign posts showed her happily smiling with Putin, though the mail disappeared after Russian federation invaded Ukraine. In improver to the Russian loan, Le Pen took 1 out from a Hungarian bank owned by acquaintances of another Putin friend, Viktor Orban, the autocratic Hungarian president.
Five years ago, Le Pen advocated for France to quit NATO and the Eu, a position that may have doomed her showtime race against Macron. Today, Le Pen insists that she does not want to leave NATO or the Eu.
Notwithstanding Le Pen does desire to leave NATO'due south Integrated Command — meaning that France's forces, in particular its nuclear weapons, would no longer exist under NATO'south dominance. At a recent press conference on international diplomacy, Le Pen declared that such a decision would restore France'due south "diplomatic and military independence," by which she means from the United States. To add a sheen of legitimacy to her position, Le Pen referred to a like decision that and so-French president Charles de Gaulle made in 1966, when in that location was a conflict with the Johnson administration over the autonomy of the French nuclear arsenal and the presence of American bases in France. But de Gaulle was ever clear about the importance of France'due south alliance with the United States and never considered a similar agreement with the USSR. Which makes it all the more than glaring that Le Pen declared recently that she would push for an alliance with Putin's Russia. That would be a blow for France's allies and the trans-Atlantic alliance.
Although Le Pen no longer proposes to exit the European union, she intends to circumvent the European union'southward rules. Her beginning act as president, she says, would be to organize a plebiscite for the French people (bypassing the Parliament and in violation of the French Constitution), asking them whether French law should be superior to European union legislation. Such a referendum would also alienation EU treaties. All the same, such promises appeal to nationalist voters who believe that France, not Europe, should have the ultimate say in the lives of French people and the laws that govern them.
Under Le Pen's leadership, foreign people, including European citizens, would no longer receive the same social benefits as French citizens. Le Pen would also reestablish control over France's borders, putting an end to the gratis movement of people, appurtenances, and services mandated past the EU. Some predict the implosion of the EU if this happens.
Le Pen would too refuse to comply with EU sanctions against Russia, at least those concerning free energy, "because information technology is so bad for French consumers," she has said. And when President Joe Biden called Vladimir Putin a war criminal, Le Pen described his remark as "irresponsible." She insisted that France'southward position must be more than balanced between the Us and Russian federation.
Le Pen'south plans in foreign affairs warrant scrutiny. Weakening French republic's relationship with the United States and provoking the implosion of the European Wedlock is essentially Putin's dream. At a time when the European Union has shown unity in the confront of Russia's attack on Ukraine, a Le Pen victory has the potential to fragment Europe, destabilize the West, and force a redrawing of the map of Western alliances.
Alain Lefebvre, a former French diplomat, is an international consultant and the author of " Macron Unveiled : The Prototype for a New Generation of World Leaders ." On Wednesday, April 27, he will discuss the upshot of the French ballot via Zoom at the French Cultural Center of Boston .
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Source: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/04/19/opinion/marine-le-pen-win-france-would-create-shock-that-would-shake-world/
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