But while Macron’s lead in the second round on April 24 has allayed strong concerns among officials in Brussels and across Europe, France still has the option of electing a president who wants to pull the country out of the military. NATO structures, tear EU ties. legislation and restore relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “I’m very worried about this, I hope we do not take Le Pen to the presidency of France,” Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn said this week, in a rare public rebuke of her candidacy by a foreign official – but a chorus was heard. regularly behind closed doors. “The French must prevent this,” he said, adding that her victory “would not only mean a rupture with the EU’s core values, but would completely change its course.” While Le Pen has softened its views on the EU since it was comfortably defeated by Macron in 2017 and no longer advocates leaving the EU or the single currency, it has called for a more relaxed “Europe of Nations” and many of the its legislative positions. would undermine or violate the Brussels treaties. As a former Member of the European Parliament, her populist economic views on state aid and the reduction of domestic taxes on consumer goods would violate EU free market regulations, as would her other commitments on immigration, trade and supremacy. of French law versus the coalition. This particular aspect of its presidential manifesto has long been a source of concern within the European Commission, EU officials said, given the significant impetus its presidency would give to other countries such as Poland and Hungary, which have challenged the rule of law. are locked in long-running legal disputes with the bloc. In a rare public reprimand from a foreign official, Luxembourg Minister Jean Asselborn says France must “prevent” a victory for Le Pen © Olivier Hoslet / EPA / Shutterstock It is also likely to derail the Franco-German relationship that has shaped much of the bloc’s recent EU policy and guided the development of the bloc, leading to a possible stalemate, analysts said. “It is clear from Marin Lepen’s program that he is more in favor of a Europe of Nations, the removal of powers from the EU, the inclusion of the identities of individual nation states,” said Jacek Czaputowicz, a former Polish foreign minister. in an interview with Polsat News. Despite winning the first round of voting, the liberal, strongly pro-European Macron is still facing a tough re-election battle, as Le Pen’s protectionist economic policies and Euroscepticism are seen as appealing to a large percentage of voters who backed other candidates in the first round. NATO, the US-led military alliance, is also set to be dramatically revised by Le Pen’s victory. The 53-year-old has vowed to withdraw France from NATO’s integrated military command structure, a step that would remove French troops and weapons from the pool of resources under Alliance command. This would represent a significant weakening of the alliance. France, which rejoined NATO’s administration under President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2009, has the alliance’s third largest military power and fourth largest defense budget and is the most important military power within the EU. While Macron himself has caused his own share of anxiety among NATO allies – referring to the alliance’s “brain death” situation in 2019 and supporting an EU-led military presence to reduce the continent’s dependence on power US fire – recently reiterated its support for the military pact in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Officials within the military alliance said there was no sense of panic, but that the second round was being closely monitored, given the possible implications for NATO of a period of conflict in Ukraine and Moscow’s growing fears of aggression against NATO members. Ian Bond, director of foreign policy at the Center for European Reform, said President Le Pen “would be bad news for France’s relations with its EU and NATO partners, but good news for Putin.” While Le Pen has voiced support for Western sanctions against Russia in response to Putin’s invasion, he has said he sees Moscow as a “great power” that “could become an ally of France again” after the end of the war. Le Pen’s ties to Russia preceded a 2014 loan from a Russian bank to her party and her visit to meet with Putin in the Kremlin ahead of the 2017 election. “We must all unite behind Emanuel Macron,” said Michael Roth, Germany’s former European minister and current chairman of the Bundestag’s foreign affairs committee. “It’s either him or the fall of a united Europe. It sounds a bit dramatic but it’s true. “ Additional references by James Shotter in Warsaw and Guy Chazan in Berlin
