New anti-immigration candidate to feature on Le Pen’s EU list

Malika Sorel-Sutter, known for her strong anti-immigration stance, will be the second candidate on the French far-right Rassemblement National party’s list for the European elections in June, making her the second candidate on the list formerly associated with the currently struggling right-wing Les Républicains party.

Leading French polls ahead of June’s European elections, Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National (RN, ID) is making it clear that it wants to tackle the immigration file at the EU level, particularly as it opposes the EU’s new Migration and Asylum Pact.

“Joining RN […] allows me to take part in the reorganisation of France. It is time to take responsible political decisions to promote assimilation and strengthen our national cohesion”, Sorel-Sutter said on Sunday when she announced she would be second on RN’s EU list.

Sorel-Sutter was known for her membership in the since 2012 dissolved Haut-Conseil à l’intégration, a public advisory body that examined integration policy, and for her very firm positions against immigration, integration, and assimilation.

Rassemblement National’s EU list features another anti-immigration voice as former Frontex director Fabrice Leggeri joined the far-right party’s ranks and was announced to be third on their EU list in mid-February.

“I am joining Jordan Bardella’s list because I want France and Europe to regain control of their borders. Frontex has been misused by the European Commission, and we need to give it back its role as a border guard”, he said at the time.

Traditionally close to LR

Sorel-Sutter and Leggeri are both former senior civil servants from outside the ranks of politics but traditionally closer to the moderate right and thus close to Les Républicains (LR).

The rallying of this former adviser to LR presidential candidate and Sarkozy’s prime minister, François Fillon, follows the announcement in early March by Alexandre Varaut, a former MEP and member of UMP, a precursor of LR. He, too, will be on the RN list for the elections.

In 2019, during the previous campaign for the European elections, Jean-Paul Garraud, a former UMP MP, and Thierry Mariani, a former minister under former president Sarkozy, joined the RN list.

“Like [Malika Sorel-Sutter], I supported N. Sarkozy and F. Fillon and, without changing our convictions, we are naturally together to play an active part in the national and European recovery”, Garraud stressed.

Although the full list has not yet been announced, Garraud is likely to be included, as Bardella has already announced.

(Paul Messad | Euractiv.fr)