Marion Maréchal battles the woke agenda, ‘Islamification’ in European elections | EUROtoday
France’s Marion Maréchal has made the “defence” of European civilisation and preventing in opposition to the “Islamification” of Europe a cornerstone of her platform as she leads the far-right Reconquest social gathering’s candidate listing within the European elections. Maréchal is the granddaughter of Jean-Marie Le Pen, who based the far-right National Front, and the niece of Marine Le Pen, who leads the National Rally social gathering, because the National Front was rebranded in 2018.
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In the run-up to the June 6-9 elections for the European Parliament, nationwide tragedies and dramatic crimes have offered alternatives to ship a political message.
A day after two officers have been killed in an armed assault on a jail van that helped drug kingpin Mohamed Amra escape, Marion Maréchal went to the Bordeaux-Gradignan jail facility, a go to she recorded on social media.
Maréchal was seen chatting with officers at this notoriously overcrowded jail that homes twice the variety of inmates it’s designed for. Photos have been shortly posted on X, Facebook and Instagram. They present the candidate listening to jail officers and denouncing a “failure of the state”.
The transfer was seen as real empathy by Maréchal’s supporters, and political expediency by her opponents: Maréchal has been looking out for troubling incidents throughout the electoral marketing campaign and has even taken the time to honour the anniversaries of previous tragedies, whether or not in France or elsewhere in Europe.
Crimes involving foreign-born suspects are a function of her social media posts, from the March 22 assault on a live performance corridor in Moscow claimed by the Islamic State group to the twentieth anniversary of the Madrid prepare bombings in March 2004.
Maréchal has used these tragic occasions to play the law-and-order card, all of the whereas emphasising the international nationality of the assailants.
It just isn’t a brand new technique, however one that also resonates with right-wing and far-right voters who see immigration as a key explanation for French and European ills.
“France is becoming a narco-state. I urgently call for exceptional anti-mafia laws to punish these criminals, eradicate trafficking and stop immigration,” Maréchal wrote on X after the prison van escape in Normandy.
‘Fighting Islamification’, a European cause
Maréchal has promised to strengthen borders to prevent migration and wants to enshrine “Europe’s Greek, Latin and Christian roots” in EU treaties.
She feeds the narrative of a “clash of civilisations” and buys into the “great replacement” conspiracy principle.
As a candidate she has additionally launched into a tour of France and Europe talking out on “Islamification”.
She has spoken out in opposition to the Ramadan decorations put in by the mayor of the German metropolis of Frankfurt, the presence of what she referred to as a “noxious Koranic school with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood” in Château-Chinon, and has accused sure elected representatives of French conservative social gathering Les Républicains of being “Islamo-rightist”.
“We are the only ones to make the defence of our civilisation the cornerstone of our programme,” Maréchal mentioned at a May 13 press convention, vowing to “fight Islamification” as a part of a “common European cause”.
Banning ‘the promotion of woke ideology’
The Reconquest social gathering has the help of between 6 % and eight % of voters, in response to polls. Founded in late 2021 by far-right pundit Éric Zemmour, the social gathering has proposed putting in a “triple border” to guard Europe from immigration and “the end of free movement for non-Europeans”.
The social gathering desires “a naval military blockade in the Mediterranean” and a “border beyond our borders, through cooperation agreements with Mediterranean countries” to fight immigration from, notably, north African nations.
But the Reconquest platform additionally desires to guard France from the European Union. It rejects something that would result in a European “federal state”: no widespread European debt issuance, no European taxes, no European military. And among the many key proposals is the abolition of the European Commission, the EU’s government department.
“[EU Commission President] Ursula von der Leyen will never be our leader; she is our employee and must remain so,” insisted Zemmour, a former presidential candidate, in presenting his social gathering’s programme on May 13.
He castigated these “masters of Europe” who’re responsible, in his view, of eager to “centralise all power in Brussels”.
Despite the anti-EU rhetoric, Zemmour and Maréchal are in favour of cooperation between European states, and intend to affix forces with the European Conservatives and Reformists group to maneuver the European Parliament clearly to the appropriate.
Their civilisational battle can be being waged on the societal entrance: Maréchal has promised to ban “the promotion of woke ideology” in Europe and to chop all funding to what she referred to as “militant LGBT associations”.
This story is a translation of the unique model in French.
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