Browse content similar to Marine Le Pen - Leader, France's National Front. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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will now have to be separated from The European Union is suffering a | :00:11. | :00:15. | |
crisis of confidence in its currency, its economic prospects | :00:15. | :00:20. | |
and its leaders. So could this be a moment of opportunity for the | :00:20. | :00:25. | |
populist politics of the far right? Well, I have come to the European | :00:25. | :00:30. | |
Parliament in Strasbourg to meet MarineLePenn, the leader of | :00:30. | :00:33. | |
France's National Front. She is running for the French presidency | :00:33. | :00:37. | |
and there is no doubt that French voters are unhappy with statas quo. | :00:38. | :00:47. | |
:00:48. | :01:02. | ||
Are they ready for the LaPenn brand of Nationalism? Well come to | :01:02. | :01:07. | |
HARDtalk. Merci. Politics, they say, is a battle between hope and fear. | :01:07. | :01:10. | |
Right now there is a very difficult situation across Europe. In France, | :01:10. | :01:16. | |
the economy is very bad. People are unhappy. Do you offer the French | :01:17. | :01:26. | |
:01:27. | :01:27. | ||
Apology for the loss of subtitles for 41 seconds | :01:27. | :02:08. | |
I asked the question because I looked at your rhetoric and this is | :02:08. | :02:14. | |
something that you said not so long ago. You said, "I call on all of | :02:14. | :02:18. | |
the sovereignists and patriotic forces to support me against the | :02:18. | :02:25. | |
euro federalism being defended by Sarkozy and socialist leader | :02:25. | :02:28. | |
FrancoisAllond. You actually make it sound like France is at war in | :02:28. | :02:38. | |
:02:38. | :03:16. | ||
I But why do you think consistently the French public rejects your | :03:16. | :03:20. | |
notion that France has to withdraw from the euro, withdraw from the | :03:20. | :03:24. | |
European Union and place itself in some sort of a bunker, building | :03:24. | :03:27. | |
high walls around itself? The French people have looked at that | :03:27. | :03:37. | |
:03:37. | :03:37. | ||
Apology for the loss of subtitles for 41 seconds | :03:37. | :04:32. | |
option and they have rejected it Your language is so dramatic - and | :04:32. | :04:37. | |
here is the final thing you said on the current political debate - you | :04:37. | :04:42. | |
said that Sarkozy was a "collaborate tor with the financial | :04:42. | :04:46. | |
markets and the big bankers". Sarkozy, you said, does not like | :04:46. | :04:51. | |
France. I have to tell you, this sort of language, the anger you are | :04:51. | :04:55. | |
expressing reminds me very much of the sort of language we heard in | :04:55. | :05:05. | |
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Apology for the loss of subtitles for 41 seconds | :05:05. | :05:45. | |
If we are going to talk about economic detail, let's get into it. | :05:45. | :05:50. | |
If you want to be taken seriously as a presidential candidate next | :05:50. | :05:53. | |
spring, you have to do more than just use your powerful language | :05:53. | :05:57. | |
against Sarkozy and the others. You are going to have to convince the | :05:57. | :05:59. | |
French people that your economic plan makes sense. So let's just | :05:59. | :06:07. | |
have a look at it. You say you want to withdraw from the euro. Of | :06:08. | :06:12. | |
course I've read it. It is very striking. You say you want to | :06:12. | :06:16. | |
withdraw from the euro as soon as possible. You say you want to | :06:16. | :06:20. | |
impose price controls to deal with what might be hyper inflation. You | :06:20. | :06:23. | |
say that you want the State to intervene on a massive scale to run | :06:23. | :06:26. | |
all of the important public services. You are including | :06:26. | :06:31. | |
transportation, energy, as well of course as health care, education. A | :06:31. | :06:34. | |
massive extension of nationalisation. This doesn't make | :06:34. | :06:44. | |
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Apology for the loss of subtitles for 41 seconds | :06:44. | :07:30. | |
Before we go any further, do you accept if you withdraw from the | :07:30. | :07:35. | |
euro, France will suddenly face a massive debt problem because your | :07:35. | :07:40. | |
debts will still be valued in euros, your own Frank if you return to the | :07:40. | :07:44. | |
Frank will be devalueed massively, there will be hyper inflation, | :07:45. | :07:50. | |
France to be -- No. -- hang on. That is your plan of the economic | :07:50. | :08:00. | |
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Apology for the loss of subtitles for 41 seconds | :08:00. | :09:00. | |
observatory in Paris will face an Well, if I may say so - it all | :09:00. | :09:03. | |
sounds wonderful. You have a smile on your face and you sound so | :09:03. | :09:09. | |
confidence about it, but are you not not aware that the French | :09:09. | :09:14. | |
Government is saddled with debt and international ratings agencies have | :09:14. | :09:17. | |
a negative watch on France and may well be downgrading it from Triple | :09:17. | :09:21. | |
A status any time now. The this is the reality already and your | :09:21. | :09:24. | |
programme according to all of the economists I have read would make | :09:24. | :09:34. | |
:09:34. | :09:48. | ||
A quick question. Just a very brief one. Did you right now feel that | :09:48. | :09:52. | |
the French economy is strong? Many people look at it and they see an | :09:52. | :09:55. | |
economy that, frankly compared with Germany, is extraordinarily weak. | :09:55. | :10:00. | |
You make it sound as if France was to go it alone and leave the euro | :10:00. | :10:10. | |
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Apology for the loss of subtitles for 41 seconds | :10:10. | :11:07. | |
everything would be fine. It is not A fineal thought on economics. You | :11:07. | :11:10. | |
talk a lot about protectionism, you talk about protecting France from | :11:10. | :11:15. | |
unfair competition from China, from India and elsewhere. I mean, all of | :11:15. | :11:20. | |
the growth right now in the world economy is coming from China, India, | :11:20. | :11:25. | |
Brazil, a host of other developing and emerging ecomonies - if you put | :11:25. | :11:28. | |
up all of these protective walls around France, how is France going | :11:29. | :11:33. | |
to expand its exports, build a Newcombe pettive economy and | :11:33. | :11:43. | |
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Apology for the loss of subtitles for 41 seconds | :11:43. | :12:40. | |
actually partake of growth in the We've talked a lot about economics. | :12:40. | :12:45. | |
Let's move on to a different aspect of your political ambition. You | :12:45. | :12:48. | |
want to win the French presidential election next spring. People in | :12:48. | :12:54. | |
France will perhaps look at you and they will try to establish in their | :12:54. | :12:59. | |
own minds whether you are politically on the same wavelength | :12:59. | :13:04. | |
travelling in just the same direction as your father, who of | :13:04. | :13:10. | |
course led the French Nationale for three decades. What would you say | :13:10. | :13:13. | |
to that? Are you taking the party in a new direction or the same | :13:13. | :13:23. | |
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Forgive me for interrupting, but would you now be prepared to say | :13:52. | :14:02. | |
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that your father made some serious You've talked about the demonision | :14:39. | :14:44. | |
of the front national of your party, you know as well as I do that under | :14:44. | :14:47. | |
your father's leadership the party was perceived by many in France to | :14:47. | :14:50. | |
be racist and anti-Semitic and time and again your father got no | :14:50. | :14:56. | |
trouble for making comments which appear to French people to be both | :14:56. | :15:00. | |
racist and anti-Semitic. Are you prepared to disown the sorts of | :15:00. | :15:10. | |
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But you, yourself, said in the summer, you said, "I have damage to | :15:49. | :15:52. | |
repair between the Front Nationale and the French people", so if you | :15:52. | :15:55. | |
are not prepared to actually say that some of the things that your | :15:55. | :15:59. | |
father believed in and said were wrong, how are you going to repair | :15:59. | :16:09. | |
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Apology for the loss of subtitles for 41 seconds | :16:09. | :17:15. | |
And I know that when in the French media you have been described as an | :17:15. | :17:18. | |
extremism, you have been very angry. You refuse to accept that you are | :17:18. | :17:22. | |
of the far-right. You just say you are of the right. But how does this | :17:22. | :17:26. | |
fit with some things that you yourself have said and let's move | :17:26. | :17:32. | |
on to the immigration issue. Just a year ago you I think in a French | :17:32. | :17:35. | |
television appearance, you talked to Muslims praying on the streets | :17:35. | :17:40. | |
of French cities and you said, "It is an occupation. There are no | :17:40. | :17:45. | |
tanks, no soldiers, but what they do is an occupation of French | :17:45. | :17:55. | |
:17:55. | :18:00. | ||
territory." That is just plain An occupation, was that the right | :18:00. | :18:10. | |
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Apology for the loss of subtitles for 41 seconds | :18:10. | :19:02. | |
You say you are backed by a lot of people. You are also opposed by a | :19:02. | :19:06. | |
lot of people and your language makes them very angry. The | :19:06. | :19:08. | |
President of the council representing associations of black | :19:08. | :19:12. | |
people in France says the problem with you is that you are just | :19:13. | :19:22. | |
:19:23. | :19:40. | ||
modernising and repackaging a form Under your father's leadership, the | :19:41. | :19:45. | |
National Front believed in the repatriation of immigrants, sending | :19:45. | :19:55. | |
:19:55. | :20:24. | ||
them back home. Is that something Do you think that the French people | :20:24. | :20:28. | |
are as interested in discussing immigration in the way that you do | :20:28. | :20:34. | |
as perhaps they were even in the election of 2002, 10 years ago when | :20:34. | :20:37. | |
your father actually got to the second round of the presidential | :20:37. | :20:43. | |
election? I just look at figures that show right now 45% of French | :20:43. | :20:49. | |
people say that unemployment is their No. 1 concern. Only 10% said | :20:49. | :20:52. | |
that immigration was their primary concern. It seems to me that the | :20:52. | :21:02. | |
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Apology for the loss of subtitles for 41 seconds | :21:02. | :21:47. | |
French public have moved on and But you know much better than me, I | :21:47. | :21:51. | |
am sure, that a whole raft of academic studies in recent times | :21:51. | :21:55. | |
have shown that in many, many ways immigration far from costing France | :21:55. | :22:00. | |
the billions and billions of euros that you claim is actually saving | :22:00. | :22:05. | |
France money because, because as academics have pointed out, it is | :22:05. | :22:15. | |
:22:15. | :22:47. | ||
reducing the tax burden on an Before we end, I just want to think | :22:47. | :22:50. | |
about the forthcoming presidential race. Who is a bigger threat to | :22:50. | :22:59. | |
your ambitions, do you think? Nicolas Sarkozy or Francois | :22:59. | :23:09. | |
:23:09. | :23:23. | ||
Well, we will and I guess you have been looking at the opinion polls | :23:23. | :23:26. | |
just as closely as I have and what I notice is you had a spike where | :23:26. | :23:30. | |
you reached almost 20% in the polls, but you have gone down again and it | :23:30. | :23:35. | |
seems to me that your numbers have gone down to about 13% because of | :23:35. | :23:38. | |
the Eurozone crisis. People have been looking very carefully at your | :23:38. | :23:42. | |
economic programme and they just don't fine it credible. That is | :23:42. | :23:52. | |
:23:52. | :24:09. |