“UNDENIABLY HE IS IN CONTRADICTION …”
The French populist presidential candidate whose 2017 election bid has been compared to Donald Trump’s successful candidacy is rebuking the new American president.
Marine Le Pen – leader of the Front National (FP) party – told French radio late last week that Trump’s flip-flop on the issue of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was a disappointing ideological reversal.
“Undeniably he is in contradiction with the commitments he had made,” Le Pen said. “I am coherent, I don’t change my mind in a few days. He had said he would not be the policeman of the world, that he would be the president of the United States and would not be the policeman of the world, but it seems today that he has changed his mind.”
That’s true … and not just in Europe.
According to Le Pen – who wants France to leave NATO – Trump has allowed those within his administration to sway him, something she vowed wouldn’t happen to her.
“That the American administration bears a part in the decisions of Mr Trump may also be an explanation, but I am the candidate who defends the superiority of politics over the administration, the bureaucracy, the economic, and so I think it is politics which must decide,” she said.
Le Pen is one of five candidates running to replace socialist François Hollande – who announced last December that he would not be seeking a second five-year term. Hollande was a close ally and ideological compatriot of former U.S. president Barack Obama.
French presidents are elected to five-year terms – of which they can serve no more than two successively. Prior to 2002, French presidents served seven-year terms.
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