Don’t shy away from your pleasure. Marine Le Pen will travel to Lisbon this Friday to meet with André Ventura, a rising figure of the Portuguese extreme right. In search of allies before the European elections, the trip also has the advantage of trying to give the head of the RN deputies the opportunity to sculpt her presidential image.
“We are going to meet patriots like us, who are on the rise. We meet, we build relationships, we exchange,” greets RN deputy Philippe Ballard to BFMTV.com.
Organize to influence the European Parliament
On the menu for this trip: first a press conference with the Portuguese who could well win the future legislative elections next March, but also a speech during a meeting on Identity and Democracy.
This movement brings together the majority of far-right parties in the European Parliament with a relatively modest number of parliamentarians. As of 2019, this group has 63 elected officials out of a total of 705 MEPs, making it the fifth largest group in terms of number of elected officials.
Despite everything, at that time there was a taste of failure: Marine Le Pen had not managed to attract parties considered close to her ideas, such as the Spanish Vox or the Polos de Derecho y Justicia.
The hope that all RN allies will join him in Brussels
But the situation could change during the next European elections next June. From Geert Wilders’ victory in the Netherlands on Wednesday to Giorgia Meloni’s success in Italy in 2022, to Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister, largely re-elected last year, the RN hopes to achieve a much broader rapprochement .
“To have influence in Brussels, not only our score counts, but also that of our allies,” says an RN member who closely follows the issue of future elections.
“Appearing together means giving weight to the idea that a good figure in our neighboring countries allows us to make decisions that affect the French and perhaps hope that they will join us in June”, continues this good observer from Brussels.
Ordering your friends
However, the party is selecting its allies. Marine Le Pen, for example, prefers to appear in Italy alongside Matteo Salvini, her Northern League ally, than with the president of the Italian Council.
And rightly so: far from fulfilling her promise of a “naval blockade”, Giorgia Meloni had to face the arrival of thousands of migrants to the island of Lampedusa last September. RN deputy Sébastien Chenu spoke of “absolute disappointment”.
Obtain presidential credit through international issues.
Marine Le Pen’s trips abroad also have the merit of allowing her to hone her presidential stature.
“A head of state is also someone who must embody France’s diplomacy. It is important that we know that it will be on equal terms, that there are already exchanges and good reflexes,” observes a parliamentary collaborator.
The approach is not always easy. If the candidate had been received by Vladimir Putin in Moscow in 2017, she had not managed to meet with Donald Trump after having hoped to meet him for an entire afternoon in a cafe in Trump Tower.
In September 2021, a few months before the French vote, Marine Le Pen appeared with Viktor Orban, who received her with the honors of head of state before participating in a video broadcast during a meeting in Reims.
Proof that the issue of international relations is important for the party: a campaign leaflet had been printed in which we saw her appearing with Michel Aoun, the former Lebanese president, Idriss Déby, former president of Chad and… Vladimir Poutine .
At the risk of tripping over your feet sometimes. If his team denied having sent thousands of photocopies to the mortar, these pamphlets were barely distributed.
Source: BFM TV
