Le Pen says people no longer want the EU

LILLE/PARIS: The European Union will die because the people do not want it anymore, French far-right leader Marine Le Pen told a rally on Sunday, saying it would be replaced by a “Europe of the people.”

“The European Union will die because the people do not want it anymore,” Le Pen said to loud applaud.

“We will change for another Europe, the European idea harmed by the federalists will re-energise itself, re-invigorate itself in the Europe of the people and of ... the nations.”

Also on Sunday, Le Pen sought to reassure voters concerned over her plans to withdraw the country from the euro zone, saying it “wouldn’t be chaos” and she would seek “well-prepared” talks with other EU countries.

Opinion polls show the anti-EU, anti-immigrant National Front (FN) leader qualifying for the April 23 first round of the presidential election but losing the May 7 run-off to centrist Emmanuel Macron.

Leaving the euro is one of the FN’s stadard-bearing policies, both a mark of its anti-establishment stance that attracts voters angry with globalisation, and a likely obstacle to its quest for power in a country where a majority oppose a return to the franc.

“The euro triggered a very serious increase in prices and a very steep drop in purchasing power,” Le Pen said in an interview published in Le Parisien newspaper on Sunday.

“It is also a serious hindrance to job creation because it triggered a loss in competitiveness for the French economy.”

However, some 72 per cent of French voters oppose a return to the franc, an Ifop poll published in Le Figaro newspaper showed.

With previous opinion polls also showing such opposition, Le Pen has said for months that if elected she would not abruptly withdraw from the euro but instead hold a referendum after six months of negotiation with the rest of the EU on a range of issues including leaving the border-free Schengen agreement and reducing the EU to a loose cooperative of nations.

Meanwhile, the frontrunner in the election, Emmanuel Macron, received yet another boost to his candidacy on Sunday when nine centre-right lawmakers decided to rally behind him.

The nine senators from the UDI-UC centre-right parliamentary group wrote a joint op-ed in the Journal du Dimanche weekly to say they would support Macron, a former minister in Socialist President Francois Hollande’s government, because of his pro-European stance and bid to go beyond the Left-Right political divide.  — Reuters