The specter of far-right leader Marine Le Pen winning France’s presidency with a pledge to go head-to-head with the European Union is already giving Brussels the jitters and looming large over Emmanuel Macron’s final months in power.
France heads to the polls in April and May, after which Macron will exit as he can only serve two terms as president of the EU’s second-largest economy.
But as Macron met his EU counterparts for a Brussels summit, a European diplomat said Le Pen was already “in the room,” with the frontrunner’s potential victory hanging over their talks on future spending and Ukraine.
Seeking to tighten the screws on the EU, Le Pen traveled to the Belgian capital on the eve of the leaders’ meeting to address the media, vowing to slash France’s contribution to the EU budget and to cut short financial support to Ukraine.
European officials do not hide their concerns that Le Pen is trying to exert influence over EU affairs months before the vote.
“It was very cunning of her to hold her press conference” the day before, said a second European diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The National Rally leader also spoke at length to the Financial Times newspaper, read by policymakers in Brussels, warning of a potential showdown over the EU budget and difficult times for EU chief Ursula von der Leyen if she wins.
The interview was “quite scary” especially on Ukraine, said Francesco Nicoli, politics professor at Italy’s Polytechnic University of Turin.
A senior European official admitted Brussels could barely imagine what the EU would look like with a French far-right government, with no known formal contacts between Le Pen and the EU executive to date.
