Fabrice Leggeri: What would a far-right victory mean for France?
The Interview
BBC
4.3 • 537 Ratings
🗓️ 26 June 2024
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Stephen Sackur speaks to Fabrice Leggeri, an MEP in Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party. The far right has high hopes of winning power in parliamentary elections in France over the next two weeks. The once unthinkable is now very possible – what would it mean for France and Europe?
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Hard Talk from the BBC World Service with me Stephen Sacker. |
| 0:05.1 | My guest today has made a dramatic career shift, leaving behind decades of service as a bureaucrat |
| 0:12.5 | inside the French Civil Service and then as chief of the EU's border security agency for a new life |
| 0:19.6 | as a partisan politician. He joined the far-right National |
| 0:24.3 | Rally Party led by Marine Le Pen and was recently elected to the European Parliament. Of course, |
| 0:31.5 | controlling immigration is one central plank of the National Rally's political manifesto, |
| 0:37.3 | along with promises to restore security |
| 0:40.0 | to the streets, rid France of foreign criminals, eradicate dangerous Islamist ideology, and boost |
| 0:48.0 | economic support for hard-pressed French workers. It is a populist formula which saw the national rally trounce President Macron's |
| 0:56.4 | centrist coalition in the recent European elections. It could see them win power in the looming |
| 1:03.2 | two-round national assembly elections. Not so long ago, the idea of the Party of Le Pen winning power |
| 1:09.9 | in France was unthinkable to many. |
| 1:13.1 | Now, it is very possible. But what would it mean for France and for Europe? Well, Fabrice Lagerie joins me now from |
| 1:21.4 | Paris. Welcome to Hard Talk. Thank you for the invitation. It's great to have you on the show. |
| 1:26.4 | Let's start with your own personal political choice. You were a French bureaucrat, then you went to Brussels to run an EU agency. Then you decided to enter partisan politics not very long ago and you joined the National Rally Party. What was it about Marine Le Penz party that attracted you? |
| 1:48.7 | As the former executive director of Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard agency, |
| 1:55.3 | I realized that at some point Brussels and especially the European Commission didn't want to properly control |
| 2:04.6 | the external borders of the European Union. So we had to face, and we still have to face, |
| 2:12.6 | massive illegal immigration flows. And what I realized that officially my mandate, my mission was officially |
| 2:20.5 | to create a European Corps of Border and Coast Guard with uniforms and weapons to support |
| 2:29.7 | European member states, to support them in protecting the external borders against illegal |
| 2:37.7 | migration but also criminality. And the European Commissioner at that time, Madam Johansson, |
... |
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