France's Le Pen hails EU 'way of life' job as victory on path to Elysee

[webfact]

France's Le Pen hails EU 'way of life' job as victory on path to Elysee

By Simon Carraud

 

France's far-right leader Marine Le Pen delivers a speech for the next year's municipal elections in an end-summer annual address to partisans in Frejus, France September 15, 2019. REUTERS/Jean-Paul Pelissier

 

FREJUS, France (Reuters) - French far-right opposition leader Marine Le Pen waded into controversy over the appointment of an EU Commissioner for "protecting the European way of life", endorsing a move that has stoked concern about rising populism across the continent.

 

Le Pen, leader of the former National Front, last year renamed the National Rally, hailed the appointment as an "ideological victory" during a speech on Sunday in which she also mapped out her path to another presidential run in 2022.

 

Addressing party faithful in the French Riviera town of Frejus, Le Pen sought to harness anti-government sentiment behind the country's "yellow vest" protests, with renewed pledges to improve purchasing power, halt or reverse privatisations and tackle rural decline.

 

Incoming EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen drew fire this week for assigning the "way of life" job description to the new commissioner responsible for migration - with critics deriding the title as a far-right slogan.

 

The appointment "speaks volumes", said Le Pen, who has often criticized the European Union while stopping short of any vow to usher France out, amid limited "Frexit" support among voters.

 

"It confirms our ideological victory," Le Pen said. Under pressure from national governments, she added, the European Union "has been forced to admit that immigration poses questions about the future of Europeans' way of life."

 

Jean-Marie Le Pen, Marine's father and predecessor as National Front chief, was placed under investigation on Friday in a long-running French probe into the alleged misuse of European Parliament funds to pay party staff from 2009-2017.

 

Since 2011, when Marine Le Pen assumed the leadership, the party has sought to broaden its appeal and trim its hard-right fringes, with mixed results.

 

In 2017, she failed to reach the second round of the presidential election - a feat her father had accomplished 15 years earlier, before losing the duel to Jacques Chirac. But her National Rally came top in France's May 26 European elections.

 

Lamenting the country's growing rural-urban divide on Sunday, Le Pen set out her pitch for France's March 2020 municipal elections and regional ballots the following year - including promises to nationalise infrastructure and adjust tax policy in favour of lower-income workers and regions.

 

"Each election is an opportunity for our political family to attach another carabiner on the slope leading up to the summit," she said. "And the summit is the Elysee."

 

(Writing by Laurence Frost; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2019-09-16

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[blazes]

In 2017, she failed to reach the second round of the presidential election - a feat her father had accomplished 15 years earlier

 

 A nice example of fake news.  She lost to Macron in the second round, polling 33% of the vote.

[Momofarang]

Just don't get it how this dumb, rabid, bitch can survive in politics. At the debate against Macron, before the second round of the presidential election, she came across like the dumbest child arguing, in the most inarticulate fashion, against the best in her class. I hoped then she was gone, and now it seems that the idiot fringe of the French electorate let her in again.

[Momofarang]

11 minutes ago, blazes said:

In 2017, she failed to reach the second round of the presidential election - a feat her father had accomplished 15 years earlier

 

 A nice example of fake news.  She lost to Macron in the second round, polling 33% of the vote.

This isn't "fake news", just very sloppy news work. "(Writing by Laurence Frost; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky) "

[blazes]

1 minute ago, Momofarang said:

Just don't get it how this dumb, rabid, bitch can survive in politics. At the debate against Macron, before the second round of the presidential election, she came across like the dumbest child arguing, in the most inarticulate fashion, against the best in her class. I hoped then she was gone, and now it seems that the idiot fringe of the French electorate let her in again.

 

My God, until I got to the word "Macron" I thought you were talking about Hillary Clinton!

[Chomper Higgot]

39 minutes ago, blazes said:

 

My God, until I got to the word "Macron" I thought you were talking about Hillary Clinton!

But... but....but.... Hillary.

 

Fixated or what?’

[blazes]

30 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

But... but....but.... Hillary.

 

Fixated or what?’

 

My dear Chomper, I accept your slight rebuke (or maybe your slight!), but, like millions of people around the world, I am fixated on Mrs Clinton merely because she was a genuine threat to world peace (or something like that).

But let me reassure you, if reassurance you desire, I do not have the merest scintilla of erotic fixation to that harridan.

Sorry if I have led this thread off-topic. (Blame Momofarang.)

[Baerboxer]

2 hours ago, blazes said:

In 2017, she failed to reach the second round of the presidential election - a feat her father had accomplished 15 years earlier

 

 A nice example of fake news.  She lost to Macron in the second round, polling 33% of the vote.

 

It's Reuters, what do you expect. They stopped worrying about facts and accurate reporting long long ago!

[Baerboxer]

2 hours ago, Momofarang said:

Just don't get it how this dumb, rabid, bitch can survive in politics. At the debate against Macron, before the second round of the presidential election, she came across like the dumbest child arguing, in the most inarticulate fashion, against the best in her class. I hoped then she was gone, and now it seems that the idiot fringe of the French electorate let her in again.

 

Seeing as how her party did rather well in the EU elections this year, it seems the French electorate don't share your opinion.

 

 

[Almer]

2 hours ago, blazes said:

In 2017, she failed to reach the second round of the presidential election - a feat her father had accomplished 15 years earlier

 

 A nice example of fake news.  She lost to Macron in the second round, polling 33% of the vote.

Why is there so much <deleted> /fake reporting, she did in fact poll 33% 

[mlmcleod]

It amazes me that after a 4 year German occupation during WWII the French still espouse the tenets of Hitlerism!  All over the world the arch conservatives seem to be on the rise.  Fear for the future of your children!

[blazes]

 

10 minutes ago, mlmcleod said:

It amazes me that after a 4 year German occupation during WWII the French still espouse the tenets of Hitlerism!  All over the world the arch conservatives seem to be on the rise.  Fear for the future of your children!

 

Tell us, Jock, do you seriously assert that "arch conservatives" are people who "espouse the tenets of Hitlerism"???????

 

Are you condemning thousands if not millions of people (world-wide) to being no better than the SS who killed 6 million Jews, homosexuals, gypsies and communists????

 

If so, you need, as some....er... world leaders would put it, "attitude adjustment".....