GEOFFROY VAN DER HASSELT / AFP Illustrative photo of Marine Le Pen taken on October 31, 2022
GEOFFROY VAN DER HASSELT / AFP
Illustrative photo of Marine Le Pen taken on October 31, 2022
POLICY – ” Never, ever have there been racist proposals at the National Rally “. Some may have swallowed their coffee wrong this morning when they heard Marine Le Pen’s response to a listener’s question relayed by journalist Apolline de Malherbe this Monday, May 6, on BFMTV: “ Why are you racist Madame Le Pen? ». « I am absolutely not racist” affirmed the person concerned, before confidently assuring that her movement, the National Front which became the National Rally, was irreproachable in this matter.
« I had the honor of leading a political movement which never in history had in its project the slightest racist proposal » assured the president of the RN group to the Assembly. This is not the opinion, far from it, of Dominique Sopo, president of the SOS Racisme association, who wrote on X (ex-Twitter): “ No, it’s not in Gorafi. It’s an interview on BFM ».
Likewise, the rebellious MP Clémentine Autain tweeted “ History Rewriting Summit. Incredible denial of one’s own ideology “. Just like his colleague from LFI, Thomas Portes, who recalls two emblematic measures resulting from the program of the far-right party and deemed xenophobic by several associations: the “ birthright » and the “ national preference ». « Your ideology is deeply racist ” he added.
The sequence also made Marine Tondelier, national secretary of EELV, react. “ Hypocritical racism. Racism which does not assume to be so. The racism that says ‘look, it’s not even in my project'” she wrote on X, before concluding by addressing the former boss of the RN: “ No one is fooled you know? ».
Others like Cyrielle Chatelain, president of the Ecologists group in the Assembly, rely to demonstrate this on the criminal record of Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of the party in 1972, convicted “ for apologizing for war crimes and contesting crimes once morest humanity » et « incitement to racial discrimination, hatred or violence ».
The RN did carry forward proposals deemed racist
In addition to the delicate legacy of Jean-Marie Le Pen, the party has carried forward proposals deemed racist not only by associations but also by the courts. Thus, in 1998 at the time when the RN was still called FN, the municipality of Vitrolles (Bouches-du-Rhône) decided to introduce a birth bonus reserved for French and Europeans living in the city for at least two years . The measure will be reversed shortly following by the administrative court of Marseille. It must be said that, two years before, Jean-Marie Le Pen did not hesitate to be modest on the subject by declaring at a press conference: “ I believe in the inequality of races, yes of course, it is obvious that all history demonstrates it, they do not have the same capacity, not the same level of historical evolution”.
In 2017, in Hénin-Beaumont (Pas-de-Calais), the historic stronghold of Marine Le Pen, the motion was passed in the municipal council “My municipality without migrants” and this then that no known project for an official migrant reception center exists in the department, specifies AFP.
More recently in October 2023, the Council of State confirmed previous judgments countering the decision taken by the RN town hall of Beaucaire (Gard) to eliminate replacement meals in its canteens on days when dishes with pork were served.
Beyond these non-exhaustive examples, the lawyer and human rights defender, Arié Halimi, goes back even further in time and recalls in a message posted on X: “ the RN is a party founded in particular by former collaborationists and Waffen-SS who contributed to the extermination of six million Jews ».
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