Europeans 2024: “Everything that the right-wing voter expects is missing from this government’s actions today,” says Francois-Xavier Bellamy

The tone has been set and the answer is clear. The head of the list of the Republicans (LR) for the European elections, François-Xavier Bellamy, whose candidacy was officially announced this Monday by party president Eric Ciotti, responded on Tuesday morning on France 2 to his colleague from the National Rally (RN), Jordan Bardella, who in this Monday called on LR voters to join the RN. “In the five years that I was in the European Parliament, I saw how the RN works. He talks a lot but doesn’t actually do anything,” argued François-Xavier Bellamy, according to whom RN MEPs have not “put a comma in any European text.”

François-Xavier Bellamy, already top of the list in 2019 with just 8% of the vote, defended his record by guaranteeing it works in particular for “farmers” or for “rebuilding” Europe’s borders. “I see the extent to which Europe is at a crossroads,” added the Latvian MEP to justify his new candidacy after the sudden fiasco five years ago. “I see how much we need to move forward,” he explained.

According to him, the rest of the list will be recorded “collectively” and “nothing is fixed.” He therefore refused to comment on the possible second place of Nadine Morano, also an RN MEP. François-Xavier Bellamy insisted on a “single and unique goal”: that his list be “effective”.

He did not congratulate Rashida Dati

Also asked about the appointment of now-former LR Rachida Dati to the Ministry of Culture, François-Xavier Bellamy admitted that he did not “congratulate” her. “My disagreement with this choice is necessary. It must be said that she is no longer part of our political family,” he insisted. “Unlike the macronists, we do not waste time on castings in order to exist only in communication,” he already stated a little earlier in an interview about his European list.

François-Xavier Bellamy also said that he was “disgusted to see the extent to which Macronism and the debate it is trying to establish with the RN will damage the political life of France in a kind of false duel that does not provide a solution.” “Everything that the right-wing voter expects is missing from the actions of this government today,” he said, assessing that Emmanuel Macron and his government have “continued the policies pursued since the election of Francois Hollande” in 2012.

This Monday, Eric Ciotti defended François-Xavier Bellamy, calling him “a wonderful European elected official who has influenced our group.” (To the European Parliament) and to France. The main person concerned, for his part, reacted in an interview with the newspaper Le Figaro, calling himself “a candidate for clarity and consistency.” European elections will take place from 6 to 9 June 2024.