Jean-Marie Le Pen blames wrong focus on EU for Marine’s loss

Marine Le Pen campaigned for France’s withdrawal from the Eurozone and to leave the European Union altogether, a Frexit. Jean-Marie blamed Marine’s campaign manager, Florian Philippot for taking a wrong direction.

“[It was] the problems of the euro, of Europe, of retiring at 60 that weighed down the campaign of Marine Le Pen. I think one should speak to the French about the real problems: demographics, mass immigration, insecurity, unemployment, dizzying deficits,” Le Pen told French broadcaster RTL on Monday.

The National Front founder said that his daughter’s position on the euro and pensions had harmed her campaign. According to the French Interior Ministry, Macron won the presidential run-off with 66.06 percent against Le Pen’s 33.94 percent.

Philippot called Macron’s success “a victory for the financial oligarchy” in an interview with French TF1, while Janice Atkinson, an independent member of the European Parliament, noted that while Macron pretended to be an outsider, he was “backed by EU, backed by globalists, backed by the bankers”, RT reported.

Jean Bricmont, Belgian political commentator, believes that Macron’s rule will be similar to that of his predecessor. “Macron is going to have the same foreign policy as [former president Francois] Hollande, only worse, so it will be more [orientation] on Washington – whether he would get along with Trump, it’s a separate question – but it would be very anti-Russian, he would probably want to arm rebels in Syria,” he said.

The massive hack of Macron’s emails “in a certain sense could have helped” him win, Professor Bruno Drweski, from the National Institute of Languages and Eastern Civilizations, told RT. Because the hack happened “very late” and compromising details about the candidate were prohibited from being disclosed, it had created sympathy for Macron.

“It’s difficult to know exactly what did happen, but it confirms that [the Macron team] need an atmosphere of conspiracy… to have something popular because they have no program, no concrete proposals,” Drweski said.

Le Pen proposed a renewal in a brief address to her supporters shortly after the first projections of the presidential elections’ results, Reuters reported. “The National Front… must deeply renew itself in order to rise to the historic opportunity and meet the French people’s expectations,” she said.

“I will propose to start this deep transformation of our movement in order to make a new political force,” she added. The National Front leader also said that the French political landscape was “split” between “patriots” and “globalists” as she prepared to launch her new election campaign for the parliamentary elections scheduled for the next few months.

Macron could lack a clear majority in the French legislative elections that are to be held in June 2017, Guy Mettan, Executive Director of the Swiss Press Club, noted, and as “candidate of the establishment” could find it difficult to unite the country.

But Paris’ main Mosque said on Sunday that the election of Macron was a sign of reconciliation between French religions. “It is a clear sign of hope to French Muslims”, La Grande Mosquée de Paris said in a statement.

Steven Woolfe, a British barrister and independent politician, told RT that Macron is next on the list of European politicians masquerading as fighters against the establishment. “Macron is the essence of the European establishment,” he said, skeptical that the former Socialist minister could introduce the change he had failed to deliver while in charge of the economy.

French police meanwhile placed nine supects into custody and detained 141 demonstrators in Paris on Sunday night for the obstruction of traffic, vandalism and unlawful assembly, following the presidential election held on Sunday. BFMTV reported that protesters were detained during an “anti-capitalist” demonstrations.

Private cars, a school, a police vehicle as well as rubbish bins were damaged.