Marine Le Pen has a secret plan to follow Britain out of the European Union and create a Right-wing alliance with Poland and Hungary, according to French president Emmanuel Macron.
The head of state made the claim in the middle of an election campaign that could see Ms Le Pen taking his job within two weeks.
“She wants to leave but dare not dare say so, and that’s never good,” said Mr Macron, as he discussed his bitter rival’s policies towards the EU at a rally in eastern France.
“She says that she wants an alliance of nation states, but she is going to find herself in a corner and she is going to try to come up with an alliance with her friends.”
Mr Macron said French voters were too loyal to Europe to accept a Frexit – the French equivalent of Brexit – and so Ms Le Pen would attack the bloc from within after teaming up with the populist governments “in Poland and Hungary”.
“It would be a strange club,” said Mr Macron. “I don’t think it is a club that would be good for France. I don’t think it would be good for Europe.”
Mr Macron is a passionate Europhile who once described Brexit as “a crime” delivered by dishonest politicians.
“The EU has changed the life of this country,” said Mr Macron, as he directly accused Ms Le Pen of “talking rubbish” about it.
He said she would follow the example of former Prime Minister David Cameron and set up a Frexit referendum, but even if she lost she would attempt to destroy the EU from within.
In reference to his French presidential election head-to-head with Le Pen on Sunday week, Mr Macron said: “This election is a referendum on Europe.”
Mr Macron was speaking in Strasbourg, where the European Parliament is based, on Tuesday night.
He said that the ‘Long Live Europe!’ chant of his supporters was a “cry of hope and of pride”.
Mr Macron added: “Europe is a space of peace, culture and democratic values but it is threatened,” and that “nationalism is war”.
During a walkabout before the rally, Mr Macron also compared Ms Le Pen to former US president Donald Trump, who once called for the use of hydroxychloroquine to deal with the Coronavirus pandemic.
Mr Macron said: “I do not forget what Marine Le Pen said during the health crisis. She wanted to treat everyone with hydroxychloroquine and she wanted to vaccinate everyone with a Russian vaccine that the World Health Organisation said was inefficient.”
Ms Le Pen once insisted she would take France out of the EU, but she has since confirmed that she wants to soften it from within.
“A people’s initiative referendum,” is her current policy, she said on Tuesday night. If the French want to withdraw from the EU “it’s up to them,” she said.
