Marine
Le Pen’s plan to make France great again
French
far-right leader unveiled her 144-point presidential plan in Lyon.
By NICHOLAS
VINOCUR 2/4/17, 7:30 PM CET Updated 2/4/17, 7:40 PM CET
LYON — Marine Le
Pen’s presidential rocket ship is ready for lift-off.
On Saturday, the
French far-right leader unveiled a 144-point plan to yank her country
out of the EU, tax the hiring of foreign workers and use “intelligent
protectionism” to shield firms from globalization.
While much of the
National Front party’s platform was already known, language in Le
Pen’s “144 presidential commitments” was broadly updated to
make it smoother and less jarring.
Le Pen no longer
speaks of “exiting the euro zone” but of “restoring the
national currency.” She no longer wants to force companies to hire
French workers via a policy of “national preference,” but one
based on the softer-sounding “national priority.”
Also gone from the
National Front’s playbook is a longstanding demand to reinstate the
death penalty, which was abolished in France in 1981. Now, Le Pen
wants to impose a prison sentence “in perpetuity” for the “worst
crimes,” beefing up an existing legal measure.
There is plenty
missing from the 22-page program. In particular, it does not offer
much new detail on what sort of demands Le Pen would make of the
European Union as part of a planned renegotiation of the terms of
French membership. In addition, the candidate stops short of
explaining exactly what would happen if France voted to leave the EU,
making no mention of plans to maintain the euro alongside a restored
“franc” currency.
This vagueness is
deliberate, said one Front official.
By fleshing out
proposals on subjects ranging from healthcare to the environment, the
Front wants first and foremost wants to prove its “competence”
and overcome a reputation for amateurishness, said Guy Deballe, a
former socialist party member and recent Front convert.
Le Pen also wants to
retain as much wiggle room as possible on the most sensitive issues —
notably what to do about the euro.
“The main thing
here is to show that the party is working, that we have the expertise
and the analytical capacity to rise to the challenges facing France,”
Deballe said. “What Marine is proposing mainly is a method … On
the specific details of certain proposals, she will adapt her actions
according to circumstance.”
On the whole, he
added, the plan was designed to “rebuild France” and “restore
the country’s greatness.”
Was such language
inspired by U.S. President Donald Trump’s promise to “Make
America Great Again”?
“The situations of
our two countries are analogous,” Deballe said. “We are totally
attacked by finance and multinational companies. We both need to
restore control and re-empower the people — to restore our
greatness, if you will.”
“So yes, there are
definitely a lot of parallels, even though the solutions will of
course be different.”
Here are a few
(non-exhaustive) highlights from Le Pen’s plan:
On leaving the EU
Le Pen’s plan
calls for “leaving the Schengen free travel zone” in order to
“restore our freedom and control over our destiny by giving the
French people back their sovereignty.”
Negotiations with
the EU are to be followed by a referendum on membership, the plan
says, with the aim of “arriving at a European project that is
respectful of France’s independence, of national sovereignty and
which serves the interests of the people.”
However, there is no
mention of how Le Pen plans to restore the franc after a hypothetical
exit from the bloc.
On French power
Le Pen wants to pull
France out of the North Atlantic Treaty’s integrated command
structure so that Paris is “not dragged into wars that are not
hers.” She also wants to raise the national defense budget to 3
percent of gross domestic product (GDP), in order to build a new
aircraft carrier, hire 50,000 new military personnel and
progressively reintroduce compulsory military service, starting with
a 3-month commitment.
On ‘intelligent
protectionism’
Le Pen details
various measures to protect French firms from foreign competition,
often in direct contradiction with EU rules. She wants to “free”
French firms from “European constraints” and force the state to
order from French companies. Foreign investment would be strictly
controlled, via an “Economic Security Agency.”
On taxing foreign
workers
France would stop
respecting Europe’s directive on detached workers, while imposing
“an additional tax on the hiring of foreign workers” — one of
the few totally new proposals in the Front’s playbook, likely
inspired by discussion of similar measures in Britain.
On immigration
President Le Pen
would slash the number of people entering France to 10,000 annually,
down from about ten times that number currently. She would also
abolish the principle of allowing immigrants to bring in family
members and force asylum seekers to apply only from their home
country. Most radically, she wants to end birthright access to
nationality, replacing it with a hereditary principle.
On welfare and the
domestic economy
Le Pen proposes a
blend of liberal measures for small companies mixed with heavy
investment in the public sector, which already accounts for about 57
percent of GDP. Small and medium sized companies would get a major
tax break and “significantly reduced” bureaucratic complexity,
the plan says.
On the other hand,
Le Pen would repeal a recently enacted reform to loosen hiring and
firing rules, would maintain the 35-hour work week, beef up the
social security system and increase staff in public hospitals.
On ‘national
identity’
If Le Pen is elected
president, she will demand that all public buildings fly the French
flag at all times, while banning the European Union’s flag. The
constitution would be rewritten to include the notion of “national
priority” in all areas, notably via defense of the French language
and teaching of the “national novel” in schools.
To defend French
culture, she also proposes a ban on sales of national monuments and
heritage sites to foreign buyers.
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