The 28-year-old head of the Rassemblement National party said in a Financial Times interview that he was assured of winning an absolute majority in legislative elections, which would force President Emmanuel Macron into “cohabitation” or power-sharing. The government, undoubtedly with an adversarial counterpart.
“I think the French are ready for change,” Bardella said, adding that the country wants to break “seven years of Macronism that has been brutal in its way of governing”. He also committed to using the political “weight” of his election victory to reduce France’s contribution to EU funds by €2bn. “I want to be exempt,” he declared.
Led by standard-bearer Marine Le Pen, the RN and their right-wing allies dominated the polls with 36 percent of the vote, according to Ifop, ahead of two rounds of elections on June 30 and July 7. The leftist coalition Nauvoo Entourage Populaire is at 28.5 percent, and Macron’s Group Taskforce is at 21 percent.
Pollsters say it is too early to predict the exact seats for the 577-member National Assembly. A hung parliament is the likely scenario, although some polls suggest the RN is close to an absolute majority of 289 MPs.
The party is taking advantage of Marine Le Pen’s decade-long effort to “detoxify” the movement founded in the seventies by her father Jean-Marie Le Pen, who disliked what he called the Nazi fuel chambers “a detail of history.” Was convicted on charges of. ,
Bardella, Le Pen’s most trusted lieutenant, argues that the RN is “ready to govern”. He is again scaling up the big birthday party spending program to reassure stressed markets and company owners.
“I think economic policy involves some basic conviction and a lot of pragmatism to ensure confidence and stability for the business community,” he said.
Bardella said he was committed to providing military support to Ukraine until it prevailed over escalating tensions with Russia. At first the RN had strong pro-Russian concessions but after a full-scale invasion of Moscow subsidies were given to Kiev.
“My situation changed. This will not change again,” Bardella said. Then, he would no longer be dragged into the aid phase, he could be ready to hand over Ukraine after 12 months; €3bn of military aid is required this year under France’s bilateral security agreement.
However the RN has maintained its convoluted approach to immigration. Bardella said the RN aims to override the French Charter through referendum to establish a so-called “national preference” for voters over foreigners for social housing and alternative welfare benefits in the coming years.
He intends to pass a law this summer to end the country’s birthright citizenship for those born in France to foreign parents, a convention that has been in existence since 1515 and now extends to people with foreign-born parents. Asks to formally request citizenship at age 18.
He argued that France’s approach to birthright citizenship “no longer makes sense”, noting how international conflict, environmental change and demography will continue to dominate the “mass influx” of immigrants. “I intend to take back control of immigration into our country,” he said.
Mavens says ending birthright citizenship would likely not pass constitutional muster and would throw many French families into administrative trouble.
The RN intends to move forward with a proposed regulation in what it describes as its effort to “counter Islamic ideologies.” This includes measures to make it more simple for mosques to conform and deport imams deemed radical, and reining in clothing that “in itself constitutes an obvious and ostentatious affirmation of Islamic ideology”.
Bardella said it will come with a variety of veils and so-called burkinis, or head-to-toe swimming gear. “The veil is not desirable in French society,” he said. “The battle is legislative to some extent, but there is also a cultural battle that needs to be waged.”
One of the RN’s financial proposals is unfunded and short on substance, such as cutting the source of revenue tax for people under 30 and repealing Macron’s escape clause “in principle” from 62 to 64. Bardella wants a crowd audit of the budget before setting spending priorities in the fall.
However, he said that if the RN takes power his first effort will be to boost the purchasing power of the working-class country through value-added tax cuts on electricity and petrol, which he says will cost the country €12bn a year. There will be expenses. He said the investment was to be held back by the imposition of a tax on the providence income of electricity corporations, subsequent tax loopholes on marine distribution corporations and a €2 billion cut in France’s annual contribution to EU funds.
Analysts have cast doubt on the feasibility of revenue-raising strikes.
The far-right program could violate EU rules on several fronts, including VAT cuts, flight from the EU electric power market and preferential treatment given to French corporations in crowdsourcing.
Nonetheless, Bardella said: “I do not intend to go to war with Brussels.”
“I just want France to protect its interests. , , For more than a decade, France has stopped doing this on the European scene,” he said. Asked whether he would act unilaterally, he said he would negotiate with the European Commission on funds and alternative issues, using his electoral mandate as leverage.
EU officials consider such wholesale negotiations on France’s EU bills unfeasible, as the common funds are set by consensus by the EU’s 27 member states every seven years, with payments due in 2027. .
In a departure from what some RN MPs had previously said, Bardella stopped short of a commitment to reduce France’s unfair domestic product deficit by a certain percentage by 2027, a limit set by EU rules.
“It remains an objective,” he said. “It is clear that there will be limited room for maneuver on the budget, which will require me to prioritize.”
France missed its deficit target this year to meet at 5.5 percent of gross domestic product, denting the fiscal record of Macron who was once seen as a strength.
French citizens have not yet come to a decision on whether they should grant Bardella the right to run such insurance policies. Despite the fact that he has said he would only accept becoming Prime Minister if the RN had an absolute majority, Bardella says he is now “confident” that they will have one.
In France, the President presides over meetings of the Cabinet of Ministers, an arrangement that runs the risk of becoming confrontational. Asked what he would inform Macron in the first real consultation, Bardella paused, saying: “Now things are going to change.”