High-profile centrist voices in Europe have taken alarm at the far-right leader’s staunch anti-EU rhetoric, with ECB President Christine Lagarde warning against “separatist ambitions” shortly after the interview.
During an EU ministers gathering in Luxembourg, Germany’s Europe Minister Gunther Krichbaum referred to Bardella’s interview to press for a speedy budget deal.
“[Bardella] said clearly that he wants to halve France’s contribution to the European Union,” said Krichbaum, a member of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s center-right CDU party. “We see what these right-wing populists want to achieve; they want to destroy the European Union … and that means that we are under time pressure … we need to find a compromise by the end of this year.”
The French far-right leader criticized that timeframe, calling it “profoundly anti-democratic” in the same interview.
Europe reacts
Bardella’s comments have prompted centrists to denounce a Frexit — a French exit from the European Union — in disguise, as such a request would likely lead to a serious crisis in Brussels. “Frexit is back, but half-hidden,” said Renew Europe MEP Nathalie Loiseau, a top ally of Bardella’s main centrist rival, Edouard Philippe.
Shortly after the interview went out on Monday, the ECB chief Lagarde commented on it on French radio Franceculture.
“When you’re part of a club as fundamental as this one, you respect the rules. You don’t just arrive saying ‘I’m going to turn the tables, I’m going to change everything’ … You have to talk to each other, you have to listen to each other, you have to find common ground, you have to respect the initial roadmap,” she said.
In the same interview, she denied having presidential ambitions of her own — long speculated in Frankfurt — but said: “I will pay close attention to the proposals of all parties, to the programs, and if I notice that France’s European anchoring … is threatened by misunderstandings, by separatist ambitions, I will speak up.”