The active phase of the presidential campaign has begun in France. The leader of the National Front, Marine Le Pen, has officially entered the fight for the main post and is predicted to win the first round. However, polls show that former Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron could beat her in the second round. Although, until recently, victory was predicted for François Fillon, whose rating fell after the publication of incriminating evidence related to the earnings of his wife. However, the balance of political forces may change more than once.
School holidays in France began with a political weekend. Each candidate found a reason to go out to voters last weekend, some even in several places at the same time. A hologram of the socialist Mélenchon, who spoke in Lyon, echoed him in Paris. Together with Benoit Hamon, who became the official candidate of the ruling Socialists (they are considered outsiders in the race), all attention was focused on the leader of the National Front. Marine Le Pen presented her “144 Commitments” program. This is the name of a weighty document, and in it - drastic measures: leave the European Union, NATO and eradicate Islamism, expelling 11 thousand people from the list of potentially dangerous.
“I propose to deprive French citizenship of persons who have passports of other countries and are convicted of terrorist activities. We do not intend to live under the threat of Islamic fundamentalism, and therefore we cannot accept on our soil people who seek to harm France,” said Marine Le Pen.
But in fact, the first point of the program is to change the Constitution of the Fifth Republic. It's about about Article 11, about referendums. The leader of the National Front proposes to use them more freely and widely, and on popular initiative. How the people, Le Pen's voters, react to these proposals can be easily judged by the reaction in the hall.
“It is now very important for us to choose someone who will put France on the right path. Now there is always one scandal or another, everyone is involved in them. You need someone you can rely on. So, today we listened to Marine Le Pen, and her speech seemed 100% correct to us,” say the rally participants.
After the rally - a flash mob from the party. A giant French flag is being flown and donations are being collected. Fundraising is rather a response to the persecution of the prosecutor's office. According to a court decision, Marine Le Pen must return 300 thousand euros to the European Parliament. She allegedly spent the money allocated for the salaries of assistants on her personal assistant and on a security guard. Le Pen refused to return the impressive amount to European officials. And her ratings immediately soared even higher.
According to the latest opinion polls, Marine Le Pen tops the top three, ahead of Francois Fillon. The financial scandal surrounding the wife of the Republican candidate has seriously damaged his image and ratings. He allegedly paid his wife a salary for fictitious work - in eight years he ran up almost a million euros. Afterwards, Fillon got his wife a job at his friend’s editorial office, where she also received hundreds of thousands of euros in two years, having written just a couple of notes. When the prosecutor's office came to the editorial office with questions, Fillon's comrades suddenly renounced their friendship. The candidate denies his guilt.
“False statements, even repeated a thousand times, will never amount to half the truth. I feel cold anger in the face of such base slander. However, I will remain unshaken, because you can clearly see that all this does not correspond to my personality at all, and the project that we defend is now under attack,” said François Fioin.
At an emergency meeting with fellow party members, he admitted that his campaign could be disrupted. A familiar scenario. The leader of the election race at the climax suddenly finds himself on the verge of withdrawing his candidacy. This is the situation in which Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who was considered president at the last minute, found himself in the last election. He, the head of the International Monetary Fund, was accused of raping a hotel maid, arrested at the New York airport, and four months later the Manhattan prosecutor's office closed the case due to doubts about the veracity of the maid's testimony. But by that time, after all the vicissitudes and humiliations, Strauss-Kahn had already been forced to resign from the post of the IMF and abandon his candidacy for president.
In 2002, Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of the National Front, could beat Jacques Chirac in the second round. Then the presidential contender was even accused of torture during his service in Algeria. As a result, his ratings fell sharply, and he lost the elections. So it is this time with Fillon. The prosecutor's office is still figuring it out, but opinion polls already show that two-thirds of citizens no longer trust the Republican leader.
The scandal played into the hands of the third candidate. Just three years ago, no one knew about Emmanuel Macron in politics - he ran the Rothschild bank. Hollande's government made him Minister of Economy. Less than a year ago, Macron renounced the Socialist Party and founded the “Forward!” movement. and declared himself an independent candidate. Now he is predicted to advance to the second round.
“You see, there are three of us here. My friend is a centrist, my friend holds right-wing views, and I hold left-wing views, and the three of us came to this rally. This is something unprecedented. This doesn't happen in France. Three ways of thinking that came together,” says a participant in Emmanuel Macron’s election rally.
U former minister economy, it seems that not everything is going well with financial reporting either. Macron allegedly could have used his ministerial post to prepare the election program - he almost spent the annual budget for entertainment expenses in just a few months. Macron denies his guilt, like all the other leaders of the presidential race, which could well be renamed the “war of incriminating evidence.”
The year 2017 is marked by elections in Europe. The composition of the parliament will be renewed in six EU member countries, and new presidents are being elected in three countries. Voting is also taking place in two candidate countries for joining the European Union. DW sums up the results of the past elections and talks about the main intrigues of the upcoming ones.
The right-wing liberal People's Party for Freedom and Democracy, led by Prime Minister Mark Rutte, won the parliamentary elections in the Netherlands on March 15: its result was 21.3 percent of the vote. At the same time, the main opponent of Rutte's party - the right-wing populist Freedom Party of Geert Wilders (photo) - was supported by only 13.1 percent of voters.
Mark Rutte regarded the election results as a victory over populism. “After Brexit and the US elections, the Netherlands said “stop” to the false essence of populists,” said the Dutch prime minister. Negotiations on forming a coalition continue in the country. It is expected that, in addition to the election winner, it will include three more parties. Rutte ruled out an alliance with Wilders.
On March 26, early parliamentary elections were held in Bulgaria - for the third time in the last 5 years. Their winner was the pro-European party GERB of ex-Prime Minister Boyko Borisov, gaining 32 percent. 27 percent of voters voted for the pro-Russian Bulgarian Socialist Party. Socialist leader Cornelia Ninova admitted defeat and congratulated her rivals.
The winner presidential elections in Serbia, held on April 2, Aleksandar Vucic became the current Prime Minister of the country. He managed to get 55 percent of the votes. After the announcement of the voting results, thousands of citizens took to the streets of Belgrade. Demonstrators fear that Vucic's victory threatens the country with the establishment of a dictatorship. Since 2012, Serbia has been a candidate for EU membership.
The elections for the new French President were held in two rounds - April 23 and May 7. As sociologists predicted, the leader of the independent movement “Forward!” entered the second round of voting. Emmanuel Macron and the head of the right-wing populist National Front party Marine Le Pen. In May, Macron won a landslide victory over his rival.
On June 8, early parliamentary elections were held in Great Britain. The initiative to hold them in mid-April was made by Prime Minister Theresa May. According to her, the opposition is hindering the process of the United Kingdom's exit from the EU. May hoped to win even more seats for Conservatives in parliament and strengthen London's position in Brexit negotiations. But in the end the Conservatives lost their majority.
On June 18, the second round of parliamentary elections took place in France. President Emmanuel Macron's coalition won an unconditional victory. The Republic on the March movement, with its allies from the centrist Democratic Movement party, won 331 seats in the National Assembly.
In Albania (an EU candidate country), parliamentary elections are scheduled for June 25. The election struggle here is accompanied by thousands of protests under the flags of the opposition Democratic Party, which accuses the ruling socialists of corruption and the intention to manipulate the outcome of the upcoming vote. At the same time, both main political forces in the country advocate a pro-European course.
In Germany, representatives of parties included in the current government coalition will compete for the post of chancellor on September 24. According to polls, the Social Democrats, after nominating Martin Schulz (pictured with Merkel) as chancellor candidate, are ranked lower than the party of the current head of the German government, Angela Merkel. 53 percent would now vote for her, while Schultz's rating is just above 29 percent.
The right-wing populist Alternative for Germany party, which was said at the beginning of the year that it could form the third largest faction in the Bundestag, is rapidly losing ground. Its rating, which reached 15 percent last year, fell to 9 percent by mid-2017.
Now the pro-European government of the Czech Republic, led by the Social Democrats, includes two more parties - political movement"ANO" and Christian Democrats. In the October parliamentary elections, sociologists predict a victory for ANO (about 30%), which will then be able to nominate its own prime minister. This movement does not have a clear ideology, but is part of the liberal faction in the European Parliament.
This year, new presidents of Hungary and Slovenia will also be elected. However, both of these EU countries are parliamentary republics in which the head of state has mainly representative functions. In February, Frank-Walter Steinmeier became the new president of Germany.
Congress of future winners. This is how the participants in the conference of national-conservative, right-wing and anti-migrant forces in Europe positioned themselves, who gathered in the capital of the Czech Republic that had come under the control of populists - Prague, to compare notes and agree on coordinating actions in the struggle for a “Europe of nations and freedoms”, against the European Union, which is rapidly turning into totalitarian and anti-people superstate.
The forum was attended by the leader of the National Front of France Marine Le Pen, the head of the Freedom Party of the Netherlands Geert Wilders, members of the leadership of the Italian League of the North party and the Austrian Freedom Party (APS) - Lorenzo Fontana and Georg Mayer, representatives of the faction " Europe of Nations and Freedoms" in the European Parliament from Belgium, Britain, Romania, Poland and other countries, was organized by the Vice-Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies (lower house) of the Czech Parliament, Chairman of the Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) movement Tomio Okamura. His party controls over 10% of the seats in the Czech parliament. The national conservative party Alternative for Germany (AfD), the third largest number of deputies in the German parliament, did not send its representatives to the pan-European forum of right-wing parties this time. Of course, for tactical, not fundamental reasons. The AfD was wholeheartedly with its European allies.
Marine Le Pen was beautiful
The star of the forum was, as one would expect, the sparkling Marine Le Pen. She told it like it is, openly and honestly, for which she is adored by a third of the French who voted for her in the second round of the presidential election, despite the frenzied campaign to discredit and discriminate against this politician, who is the conscience of France.
Le Pen said in her speech at the forum:
The European Union stops breathing. There is hope that we will destroy this terrible organization from the inside. We must act as a conqueror acts." She expressed hope that right-wing and nationalist parties can defeat supporters of the EU in its current form in the upcoming 2019 European Parliament elections, and that they can put an end to a structure that is "leading the continent to death.
The leader of the National Front is confident that the current EU will be replaced by Union European peoples- a new “Union of European Nations”, a free association of European peoples, providing for “voluntary cooperation of countries based on respect for their political and economic interests.” However, first, Le Pen believes, the abolished borders between the states of the Schengen zone should be restored and the European Commission should be eliminated.
The French politician called " historical event“and considered the news about the formation of a new government in Austria by anti-migrant parties, almost half of whose members belong to the APS that participated in the Prague forum, as confirmation of its forecast.
Le Pen also wished Russian President Vladimir Putin to win the presidential elections in 2018, “because we believe that France and Russia must improve bilateral relations.”
Okamura as an example of successful integration
Tomio Okamura, Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders at the forum of anti-migrant parties in Europe in Prague. Photo: www.globallookpress.com
Another star of the forum was its host - SPD leader Tomio Okamura, an incredibly popular politician of Japanese-Korean-Czech origin in the Czech Republic. This person - clear example what European integration should be like.
The politician explained that the project of the Union of European Nations involves maintaining the free movement of citizens and goods in Europe while simultaneously strengthening the security of its population and protecting its traditions and values. The SPD leader also warned about the danger of “Muslim colonization of Europe.”
Wilders supported the countries of Eastern and Central Europe in their conflict with Brussels
Geert Wilders, leader of the Dutch Freedom Party, which came second in his country's last parliamentary elections only because the winning party stole his anti-migrant and populist slogans, endorsed the position of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, which refuse to accept illegal migrants according to EU quotas.
The politician called on them not to give in, despite the European Commission's lawsuit in the European Court, and to "keep their doors tightly closed" to illegal migrants. He especially praised the Czech Republic, which now has a populist and anti-immigrant government, a third of whose population negatively assesses their country's EU membership, ranking first place among Eurosceptics within the community.
Vladimir Putin received Marine Le Pen in the Kremlin
Leftists and liberals failed to disrupt the forum
Left-liberal demonstrators tried to disrupt the Prague conference of right-wing parties using fascist methods, several hundred of whom staged a noisy demonstration not far from the hotel where the forum was held. To protect its participants, the Prague authorities attracted security forces, mounted police and even helicopters. The event ended without incident; nothing came of it for the Soros hirelings and the protesters they fooled. The conference ended on an optimistic note; the struggle for a real Europe continues and gains strength.
Previously, he also opened a criminal case against Le Pen for posting photographs on Twitter that, according to the parliamentarian, depicted victims of a crime banned in Russia.
Before this decision comes into force, it must be approved by the relevant authorities.
Last week, Le Pen tweeted photographs of IS victims, one of which showed a beheaded man in an orange robe. The French Prime Minister criticized the actions of the leader of the National Front. Le Pen later deleted the photographs. In turn, the French Interior Minister said that the authorities would study the legality of publishing such images. He added that
it will be difficult to initiate a criminal case on this fact, since Le Pen’s Twitter contains no statements that are contrary to the law, for example, words in support of terrorism.
It was also reported that Catherine, the head of the party cabinet of the National Front leader Marine Le Pen, as well as the bodyguard of the French presidential candidate Thierry Legier were suspected of fictitious hiring as assistants to the European parliamentarian.
At the same time - on February 22 - the police of the anti-corruption department had already interrogated Grise and Lezhier in French city Nanterre.
The investigation itself was initiated by the Paris prosecutor's office.
Two days later, Le Pen refused to appear for questioning by the police in the case of embezzlement of European Parliament funds, which she is suspected of illegally paying to members of her party.
According to the representative of the defense of the country's presidential candidate, Le Pen will appear on the summons after the presidential elections are completed.
In mid-February this year, polling data from Opinionway showed Le Pen as the favorite in the first round of the French presidential election. Study public opinion confirmed previous reports that Le Pen would win the most votes in the first round but could then lose in the second.
26% of respondents are ready to vote for the leader of the National Front in the first round, 22% for the former Minister of Economy, Industry and Digital Affairs of France, and 21% for the former Prime Minister of France, the Republican candidate.
Le Pen is considered a candidate for the presidency of France friendly to the Russian authorities.
At the beginning of this year, she made a statement that she saw no reason not to recognize the legality of the annexation of Crimea to Russia.
“I absolutely do not believe that this was an illegal annexation: there was a referendum, the people of Crimea showed that they wanted to join Russia,” the politician said then.
In addition, during the interview, she called for the creation of a “strategic relationship” between France and Russia in the fight against ISIS.
Her statements coincided with reports of the joint reluctance of French banks to finance her campaign. Last December, it was reported that Russia was trying to recover in court a loan of €9 million issued to Le Pen’s Popular Front party.
Initially, the money was issued to the French party, which then assigned the loan, and was declared bankrupt.
Later, the loan was assigned to the Moscow company Konti, a car lessee from South Butovo.
Le Pen has said that if she wins, she plans to pull France out of the eurozone, call for other EU members to abandon the euro and transfer control of the Bank of France to the government.
The European Parliament has stripped National Front party leader Marine Le Pen of her immunity. She could now face charges of financial abuse and distributing violent images.
Marine Le Pen (Photo: Panoramic via ZUMA Press / TASS)
The European Parliament voted to deprive the leader of the National Front party and French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen of parliamentary immunity due to the fact that she posted on her Twitter photographs of scenes of violent acts committed by militants of the Islamic State terrorist organization banned in Russia. reports Reuters.
Previously the European Parliament Committee on Legal Affairs voted.
In December 2015, Le Pen published several photographs of IS victims on her microblog to protest the comparison of the National Front with the group’s militants. One of the images showed American journalist James Foley executed by militants.
The deprivation of parliamentary immunity means for Le Pen that a lawsuit can now be brought against the leader of the National Front on charges of distributing materials “with particularly brutal scenes of violence.” As punishment for this crime, Le Pen could face a fine of €75 thousand or imprisonment for up to three years.
In addition to charges of distributing violent materials, Le Pen may face charges of financial fraud.
The Financial Directorate of the European Parliament sent her a notice demanding that she repay the debt in the amount of €298.5 thousand by January 31, 2017. This amount is the salary of Le Pen’s assistant in the European Parliament, Catherine Grisse, for 2010-2016. In addition, the European Parliament demanded that Le Pen reimburse another €41.5 thousand to compensate for the salary of her bodyguard Thierry Legier. The financial directorate of the EP accuses Le Pen of the fact that her assistant and bodyguard received a salary, but were not even in Brussels at that time, but worked for the benefit of the National Front in Paris.
Marine Le Pen has been a member of the European Parliament for more than 13 years. Currently, she heads the “Europe of Nations and Freedoms” faction there, uniting 35 far-right deputies from European parties of Austria (“Austrian Freedom Party”), Belgium (“Flemish Interest”), Italy (“Northern League”), the Netherlands ( "Freedom Party"), Poland ("Congress of the New Right") and France ("National Front").
In addition, Marine Le Pen is taking part in the race for the presidency of France, the first round of elections of which is scheduled for April 17, 2017.
