Former White House strategist Steve Bannon on Saturday re-energized France’s struggling far-right National Front party by speaking at a party congress and telling Marine Le Pen’s nationalist supporters: “History is on our side.”
Bannon’s appearance in France was part of a European tour as he seeks an international platform for his closed-borders, anti-foreigner message that helped Donald Trump win the US presidency.
The former Breitbart News chairman was an early admirer of the National Front, whose long-standing “French First” motto rallied French voters for years before Trump’s “America First” campaign.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“Let them call you racist. Let them call you xenophobes. Let them call you nativists. Wear it as a badge of honor,” he told the crowd at the party congress.
The National Front has never won the French presidency, and the congress in Lille is aimed at remaking its image after Le Pen’s crushing defeat to independent, pro-globalization Emmanuel Macron in last year’s presidential election.
However, Bannon might have threatened Le Pen’s makeover with his compliments for an extreme version of the National Front and lavish praise for Le Pen’s more hardline niece and rival.
“You’re part of a worldwide movement bigger than France, bigger than Italy,” Bannon told National Front supporters, denouncing central banks, central governments and “crony capitalists.”
His European tour centered on last weekend’s Italian election, which Bannon called “an earthquake” after populist and anti-immigration parties outperformed traditional parties.
The outcome has boosted far-right movements across Europe and was seen as a victory for the forces that elected Trump and voter approval for Britain to leave the EU.
“History is on our side,” Bannon said to hearty cheers.
He praised Le Pen’s vision of a political spectrum that no longer spans left-right, but puts nationalists versus globalists.
Bannon gave his first European speech in Zurich earlier in the week and on Saturday said that he was traveling the world to learn.
The European tour comes as Bannon’s role in US politics is uncertain. He was ousted from the White House last year amid tensions and stepped down as chairman of Breitbart News Network in January after a public break with Trump.
In France, some said that Bannon’s support could damage Le Pen’s efforts to cleanse the National Front of the racist stigma that has long clung to the party’s image.
Le Pen defended inviting Bannon to the meeting, saying it was important to listen to the man who was “the architect of Donald Trump’s victory” and has written about globalization, protectionism and giving to regular people the power that “has been practically illegally captured by the elite.”
Bannon also used his visit to call Le Pen’s niece, Marion Marechal-Le Pen, one of most important people in the world, according to French media.
Bannon has publicly praised Marechal-Le Pen in the past, and she galvanized the crowd at a recent convention of US conservatives.
SUNDAY VOTE
The National Front yesterday severed its ties to firebrand founder Jean-Marie Le Pen.
Despite her troubles, Marine Le Pen was re-elected to a new term as party president. She was the only candidate for the post.
A new leadership structure and 100-member governing council was also named.
Jean-Marie Le Pen did not attend the congress.
The party expelled him in 2015 over anti-Semitic remarks, but he kept the honorary position.
However, yesterday’s vote is seen as a crushing blow for the 89-year-old.
Additional reporting by AP
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion