Presidential candidate Édouard Philippe deplores the desire of certain candidates to leave the Atlantic Alliance and estimated Thursday that France's defense effort should not be “relaxed” nor its cooperation with NATO allies.
“In a dangerous world, it’s better to be a little stronger than a little too weak. And so I think that the decision taken by all successive governments since 2017 to increase national defense resources was a good decision. (...) I do not believe that the effort should be relaxed in the future,” declared the Horizons candidate on the sidelines of a trip to the Euronaval sea defense exhibition.
The “modernization of nuclear deterrence (...) is essential and it is one of the pillars of our defense and it must not be weakened in any way,” he added. “We must also expand our conventional armament, develop new technologies, innovate” and “that requires resources”.
Regarding the navy, Édouard Philippe wanted “an increased presence at sea” with a model “with at least 18 frigates”, compared to around fifteen already planned from 2030.
The contender for the Elysée deplored in passing that his rivals Marine Le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, given the second round of the presidential election according to recent polls, are “supporters of a withdrawal from NATO structures” or a “partial withdrawal” of these structures. “We need to take our full place in NATO and contribute to the creation of a European pillar of NATO,” argued Édouard Philippe.
The candidate of France Insoumise Jean-Luc Mélenchon is in favor of leaving NATO, while the candidate of the National Rally Marine Le Pen pleads for a withdrawal of the integrated command of NATO but only in peacetime.
“Ms Le Pen explained to us in 2014 that we had to leave NATO. She explained to us just before the Russian aggression in Ukraine that Russia would never attack Ukraine” and “she explains again” that we must “start from the integrated command” of NATO. But “on a boat, when you have one foot out, one foot in, you generally lose your shit,” he snapped.
Asked about this new day of mobilization, Robert Ménard, various right-wing mayor of Béziers, recalls that we must “distinguish violence from people’s real demands”. “The high school students have real reasons, but LFI is throwing fuel on the fire. They are fueling violence, they don’t give a damn about their political demands,” he denounces on the Europe 1 set.
“LFI spends its life justifying abuses. It’s not because we are poor that we have the right to break things. What contempt for people to explain that because their situation is difficult, they have the right to break!” he protests. “The people most scandalized by the thugs are honest people,” he defends.
He praises the courage of the 70,000 law enforcement officers deployed on the ground for the mobilizations and deplores the more than 2,000 injured police officers and firefighters. “I am amazed at their calm, their restraint. I tell myself that the guys are heroic. The guys threaten them, insult them, and they do nothing? There is no one who is as closely monitored as the police officers with the IGPN, so don't tell me that they have the right to do what they want. We must first thank them and tell them that we are behind them,” he insists.
On the issue of immigration, he says: “of course immigration is one of the central problems of our country. If the RN has such incredible scores, it’s because people like Édouard Philippe didn’t talk about it for years.” In the latest mobilizations, “we cannot say that immigrants are the cause of the violence, but it is true that there is an over-representation,” he recognizes.
It was not Jordan Bardella who defined the contours of his possible future government. It was, surprisingly, Marine Le Pen herself who took care of it. During her campaign launch meeting in front of nearly 8,000 people at the end of October in Orléans (Loiret), the National Rally (RN) candidate took the time to dwell on a particular date: the day after the second round of the presidential election, and the victory she so desires. “The prime minister – and mine will be Jordan Bardella – will be the leader of the government orchestra, an open and pluralist government, a government that I hope will be one of national unity,” she asserts in front of her elected officials, executives and activists. Our desire for French unity leads us there. The situation of a fractured country demands it from us. » Unlike Jordan Bardella who will choose, during his speech, not to mention once the method which will guide him to compose and propose a government to Marine Le Pen in the event of election in 2027.
