The president of the National Rally Jordan Bardella said Thursday that he was against an exit from NATO’s integrated command as long as the war in Ukraine “is still ongoing”, affirming in passing that he was not totally hostile to deliveries of French Scalp missiles in kyiv. Should we leave NATO’s integrated command? “If the war is still ongoing, no,” replied Jordan Bardella during an interview in Paris organized by the Politico media and the Europa Nova think tank.
“We don’t change treaties during war”
“We do not change treaties in times of war,” insisted the head of the RN list in the European elections, while his party has long been advocating to leave the command of the Alliance, as General de Gaulle did in 1966, before Nicolas Sarkozy reversed this decision in 2009. In April 2022, two months after the start of the Russian invasion in Ukraine, Marine Le Pen, then qualified for the second round of the presidential election, had promised to “leave the integrated command of NATO”, in the name of “independence” from France. But this program “did not take the war into account,” assured Jordan Bardella.
The president of the RN has also not closed the door to deliveries of French long-range Scalp missiles to Ukraine. “Why not,” he said. However, he warned against sending equipment “that could reach Russian territory”, at the risk of an “escalation”. Asked about the upcoming American elections in November, which he believes will be decisive for the future of NATO, Jordan Bardella admitted that “between (Joe) Biden and (Donald) Trump”, his “heart is more with Trump” . While agreeing that a new mandate for Donald Trump was “not necessarily” good news for France, “when we see the threats of sanctions and customs duties on French wine exports” that he poses.
Jordan Bardella, who is at the top of voting intentions in France for the June election, finally returned to the potential alliances that his party, member of the Identity and Democracy group (nationalists and far right), could form in the European Parliament. He said he was banking on “a breakup” of the far-right group “European Conservatives and Reformists” (ECR), which includes the party of Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni. “We can reasonably hope to be the 3rd group in Parliament,” he added.