A Le Pen victory in France would sow chaos in Europe and NATO
France’s presidential election has come down to another duel between pro-European incumbent Emmanuel Macron and the far-right Marine Le Pen, who vows to take on the European Union and withdraw her country from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s military command.
The same goes for Ms. Le Pen’s promise to end French participation in NATO’s military command and her call for a “strategic rapprochement” between NATO and Russia once the war in Ukraine has ended. Ms. Le Pen aims to neuter NATO by undermining its central tenet, specifically the principle of collective defence contained in Article 5, which posits that an attack against one NATO member is an attack against all members.
Indeed, a Le Pen victory would strengthen the hand of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his Polish counterpart Mateusz Morawiecki as they assert the supremacy of national laws that discriminate against migrants and minorities over European legislation. It would also buttress Russian President Vladimir Putin’s campaign to sow disunity within the EU.
Her vow to withdraw her country from NATO’s military command also resonates across the political spectrum in France, where the Western alliance has long been seen as a tool of U.S. foreign policy. Former president Charles de Gaulle withdrew France from the NATO command in 1966; Nicolas Sarkozy reversed that policy in 2009.
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