“Foreign agent”, party of “national laziness”. Far-right candidate for the European elections Jordan Bardella was the target on Sunday, on Ukraine and Russia, of his rivals gathered for a first televised debate. The seven main candidates – Jordan Bardella (RN), Valérie Hayer (Renaissance), Raphaël Glucksmann (PS-Place publique), Manon Aubry (LFI), Marie Toussaint (Les Écologues), François-Xavier Bellamy (LR) and Marion Maréchal ( Reconquest!) – were invited for two hours to debate as part of the RTL-Le Figaro-M6-Paris Première Grand Jury.
“You are a foreign agent,” Marie Toussaint told the president and head of the National Rally list, who criticized Emmanuel Macron for wanting to “suppress the sovereignty of France” by advocating European defense. “When we have such a fascination for (Russian President) Vladimir Putin, for (Syrian President) Bashar al-Assad, we cannot come here and say that we defend the French. It’s really a lie,” added the candidate.
“You have never voted (in the European Parliament) in favor” of resolutions aimed at “freeing ourselves from Russian gas,” Marie Toussaint further affirmed. “It’s the hospital that doesn’t care about charity,” added Valérie Hayer, while Jordan Bardella suggested to his competitors to “sweep in front of (their) door” because France is the “leading country to import Russian gas ” in the EU. The candidate from the presidential camp considered the RN’s “support” for Russia “shameful”, recalling that Jordan Bardella had “never supported the condemnations (of the European Parliament) against the imprisonment of the Russian opponent” Alexeï Navalny, has since died in prison.
“You are no longer the party with the national flame, but the party with the national laziness”
Raphaël Glucksmann, for his part, underlined that the far-right candidate had “voted against” the creation of a European defense fund. “You want us to talk about your interests with Georgia?” retorted the head of the RN list. But the PS candidate, who in the past advised the former pro-Western Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili and was for this reason the target of disinformation campaigns, said he was “proud”, while the FN (now RN ), “led by Jean-Marie Le Pen, approved the invasion of Georgia”, to be “alongside the Georgians to fight against Vladimir Putin”. “You are not patriotic, you are at the service of an ideology,” he told Jordan Bardella.
Insoumise France candidate Marion Aubry in turn criticized Jordan Bardella for having tabled “21 amendments in the space of five years” in the European Parliament. “You are no longer the party with the national flame, but the party with the national laziness,” she concluded.