PARIS (Parliament Politics Magazine) – In the race for presidency, Marine Le Pen is accused of “authoritarian drift” by Emmanuel Macron while he gets criticised for his febrility.
Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday accused his opponent of “authoritarian drift” with regard to the press and institutions, the latter castigating in return his “febrility”.
When the candidate of the National Rally “says ‘you are a journalist, but sir is not because he says things that I don’t like’, we have the beginning of an authoritarian drift”, declared the candidate president on Wednesday morning on France 2, noting that the same day his opponent had proposed to “change the Constitution in his hand”.
Asked about these remarks, the far-right contender ironically wondered if it was the “same President of the Republic who suppressed the press room at the Elysée Palace” and “who created a scandal within newsrooms because he wanted from each newsroom to choose the journalists who followed him”.
“All this shows a form of feverishness on the part of the president. Emmanuel Macron obviously doesn’t have a lot of hooks as far as I’m concerned, let him rather go on the merits of (my) project,” added the candidate, who was visiting a concrete factory in Gennevilliers (Seine-Saint- Denis).
RN Presidential Candidate Marine Le Pen:
Intends to increase permanent members of the UN Security Council
She said on Wednesday her intention to relaunch the idea of expanding the number of permanent members of the UN Security Council if she were elected. “To restore some legitimacy to the Security Council, I will relaunch the idea of expanding the list of its permanent members,” she said during a press conference where she presented her foreign policy program if she had to go to the Elysée.
She cites India but also “a representative of Africa or even South America” as a potential new member of this UN executive body.”
The Security Council has 15 members. China, the US, France, the UK and Russia – are permanent members, with veto power. The other 10 are elected by the General Assembly for two years. If the candidate judges that this idea “will be difficult to implement, it must be proposed again to participate in rebalancing international relations”.
Le Pen believes “that it is up to us to justify the legitimacy, today, (of) the permanent headquarters (of France), by the renewed influence of our external action”.
“We must not neglect the G7, G20, if we want to strengthen bilateral relations with each of the approximately two hundred States with which we have diplomatic ties,” she added.
Assures she would “not leave the Paris agreement” on the climate
She said, “I will not get out of the Paris agreement. I am indeed in favour of the orientations of this agreement, since I wish to abandon fossil fuels as much as possible in favour of civil nuclear energy, ” she said during the presentation of her diplomatic objectives.
Here is what others had to say
Jewish institutions call for a vote for Macron
The main Jewish institutions in France, including the Consistory and the Crif, have called for a vote for Emmanuel Macron in the second round of the presidential election, in the name of defending “republican values”.
“The Central Consistory of France, deeply attached to its motto ‘Religion and Fatherland’, urges the French to mobilise massively on April 24 to ensure the triumph, through the ballot box, of France which brings us together”, writes the institution, representative of the Jewish faith in a press release issued on Wednesday.
Five memorial foundations call for choosing “republican values”
Five memorial foundations from the Second World War called on Wednesday “for a strong mobilisation”, during the second round of the presidential election, “to make a clear choice in favour of republican and democratic values”.
On April 24, “we will have to choose between two opposing models of society: one guarantees the preservation of our republican and democratic values and of France’s European commitment resulting from the Second World War, while the other calls them back into question”, write these organisations in a joint declaration.
For La Manif Pour Tous, “Five more years with Macron is no”
The association founded in the wake of opposition to the law opening up marriage and adoption to same-sex couples published a press release on Wednesday calling for people not to vote for candidate Macron.
La Manif Pour Tous criticised the outgoing president for his “collusion with surrogacy ”, precisely denouncing “the double language of the President of the Republic, who declares himself opposed to this practice of surrogate mothers, but which facilitates the recognition of GPA carried out abroad. Anything that contributes, directly or indirectly, to encouraging surrogacy must be fought everywhere in the world” continues the press release.
Jean Rottner: “If he is re-elected, we will have to work with Emmanuel Macron”
In an exclusive interview with Le Figaro, the LR president of the Grand Est region regrets that part of the right, “carried by zemmourist impulses”, did not call to vote for the president-candidate.
