France should seek rebate on EU contribution, says presidential candidate Retailleau

PARIS — Conservative presidential candidate Bruno Retailleau said France should seek a rebate on its contribution to the EU budget ahead of a key European summit in Brussels this week.

France pays more in to the EU budget than it gets out, but it is struggling to reduce a severe budget deficit.

“It’s crazy,” Retailleau, the leader of the conservative party Les Républicains, said at POLITICO’s Competitiveness Summit in Paris. “Why should we contribute more when we know how dire our public finances are?”

European leaders are meeting in Brussels on Thursday and Friday to discuss the bloc’s long-term budget, the Multiannual Financial Framework, which is pitting the so-called frugal countries against those who want a bigger EU budget. France sits in neither camp.

Retailleau singled out structural funds — money that is invested in poorer European regions — as an area where savings could be made.

“We’ve given billions to countries so they would catch up with us. Well they have, and in a couple of years they’ll probably have a higher standard of living. Sorry, but stop,” he said.

However, Retailleau, who is trailing center-right presidential candidate Edouard Philippe and far-right front-runner Marine Le Pen in the polls, did not put a figure on the rebate he would demand if he came to power. Le Pen, who is the front-runner ahead of next year’s presidential election, and her party have proposed slashing France’s yearly contribution by €11.1 billion as early as next year.

Retailleau said he would seek “a negotiation,” rather than unilaterally impose a lower contribution, as Le Pen says she would do.

“I’m not going to behave like Marine Le Pen, I’m pro-European,” said Retailleau.

Retailleau argued that France’s defense and nuclear deterrence investments should also be included in the country’s contribution calculation, because the concept of forward deterrence benefits France’s European neighbors.