Double talk on Russia? Jordan Bardella said he was against France leaving NATO’s integrated command. At least as long as the war in Ukraine “is still ongoing”, launched the head of the RN list in the European elections on Thursday, during an interview organized by the media Politico and the Europa Nova think tank.
However, the measure appeared in the program defended by Marine Le Pen for the 2022 presidential election. This is not the first time that the party boss seems to diverge with the line taken by the former candidate on Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Is this really the case? We take stock.
A change of heart on NATO?
For years, the National Rally has advocated leaving this military command structure of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. In his project – still online on the party website – so we can read this :
“The priority will be to leave NATO’s integrated command; France’s participation in the integrated military command of this organization is incompatible with its status as a sovereign power, its diplomatic and military independence and the free definition of the use of its nuclear strike force. »
“We don’t change treaties during war,” Jordan Bardella said Thursday evening to justify this change of heart, while the conflict has been bogged down for more than two years now. The person concerned would also have proposed to Marine Le Pen to withdraw this proposal from the RN project, reports The world. A request that went unanswered. The party prefers to recall that Marine Le Pen had already in some way “suspended” this measure – although considered a priority – during the last presidential campaign. The candidate then defended a “strategic rapprochement between NATO and Russia” when the war between the country of Vladimir Putin and Ukraine “will be completed and will have been settled by a peace treaty”.
A difference of line on Russia?
This is not the first time that Jordan Bardella’s comments seem to clash with those of Marine Le Pen about Moscow. This Thursday, the MEP did not close the door to deliveries of French long-range Scalp missiles to Ukraine, even though this choice was being judged “irresponsible” last summer by Marine Le Pen.
Another example after the death in custody of Alexei Navalny in mid-February. The party boss had praised on X “its opposition to the regime” of Vladimir Putin, evoking “tragic news for all defenders of human rights and fundamental freedoms”. The member for Hénin-Beaumont had confined herself to record the “death” of a “political activist committed to the defense of democracy”.
In a more direct manner, Jordan Bardella seemed to criticize the position of his people in a column in Opinion in February 2023. He then regretted “a collective naivety with regard to the ambitions of Vladimir Putin”, while the RN is regularly targeted for his “ambiguities” towards the Kremlin. The speech had cast a chill internally and angered the former boss of the movement, who had proclaimed her “admiration” for the Russian president in 2011.
An impact in the European campaign?
These fluctuating positions are used by their adversaries in the run-up to the European elections. “New episode of the RN’s ”yes but no but yes”: Bardella wants to get out of NATO’s integrated command. But no actually. But yes nonetheless. Well, not in wartime. After the weather vane policy, the RN confuses NATO with a saloon door. Not serious,” said Renaissance MEP this Tuesday, Nathalie Loiseau on X.
Our file on Jordan Bardella
Beyond the formal differences, the presidential camp emphasizes that the RN holds a single line on substance: refusal to vote on energy sanctions against the Putin regime and the resolutions which denounced the detentions of Navalny, refusal to deliver offensive weapons in Kiev, support for the annexation of Crimea or refusal to integrate Ukraine into NATO. An RN executive mocks the barbs launched by the presidential camp: “What I call the Macronists’ Putin offensive is stupid and has no impact on the ground,” he mocks. Less than three months before the election, Jordan Bardella is still leading in the polls.