Convinced that a wave of the far right will soon sweep across the continent, Jordan Bardella no longer even dreams of leaving the European Union (EU). “We don’t leave the gaming table when we are winning the game”, repeats the president of the National Rally (RN). But not all tables would be worthy of welcoming the MEP, who rejected the invitation from the Public Senate channel, host, Thursday March 14, of the first debate of the European campaign. ” Be serious…. And why not Coquelicot TV? »he mocked.
The head of the RN list in the June 9 vote preferred to send Thierry Mariani there to face his seven main competitors on the stage installed in Strasbourg, within the grounds of the European Parliament. Nicolas Sarkozy’s former Secretary of State for Transport knows the place well, where he has been sitting since 2019. But his links with the regime of Vladimir Putin, in particular his travels as an electoral observer in the annexed regions, had made it for more than two years undesirable even in his own party. An RN executive even announced last year that the one who – officially – is still not a candidate for a new mandate as European deputy was ” retired “.
“The choice of [Thierry] Mariani is an arm of honor addressed to the campaign and the symbol of the arrogance of the RNTance Pieyre-Alexandre Anglade, president of the European Affairs Committee at the National Assembly and campaign director for the presidential camp in the European elections. They think they are so above everything that they even dare to send the Kremlin intern. »
Just two days after the debate in Parliament on the Franco-Ukrainian bilateral security agreement, Thierry Mariani presents himself as “man to be killed”first ” surprised “ to be designated by the RN for this first electoral contest. “Jordan [Bardella] found that this debate came too early in the campaign for him. He asked me to go, and I’m quite honored.”he explains.
What does it matter if the report of the parliamentary commission of inquiry relating to foreign interference in French political lifepublished in June 2023, confirmed its “great ideological and political proximity [avec] Russian power »Thierry Mariani counts well “assume all [ses] positions » on tray. “History will judge”anticipates the sixty-year-old, still as convinced that “responsibilities are more shared than we say” in the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. “It all started with a coup in 2014, supported by the United States and the European Union”he commented on the social network X on March 28, 2022in reference to the Maidan “revolution of dignity” against the pro-Russian president who then ruled Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych.
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