PARIS: A former advisor to Donald Trump in comments aired Thursday said he hoped French far-right leader Marine Le Pen could run for president despite her legal woes, dismissing her lieutenant as a “lightweight.”
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Le Pen as president would help “break” the European Union, Steve Bannon said in an interview with television broadcaster France 2 on Tuesday in the United States.
A French court last year convicted Le Pen in a graft case, banning her from running for office for five years and effectively derailing her 2027 presidential bid.
The 57-year-old hopes to overturn the conviction in an appeals trial that starts next week, with a verdict expected in the summer.
But she has already said the president of her National Rally party, 30-year-old Jordan Bardella, could run instead of her if needed.
A poll in November predicted that Bardella — who is not among those accused in the trial against Le Pen — would win the second round of the 2027 elections, no matter who stands against him.
But the American was far less impressed — including after Bardella last year cancelled a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) after Bannon made an apparent Nazi salute onstage.
“I think he really cancelled the presentation because he doesn’t speak good English,” said the conservative firebrand, who at the time called Bardella “a little boy” and “unworthy of leading France.”
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“I think that he’s not prepared to be president of France,” he added, describing him as “a total lightweight and incapable of pulling France out of the crisis that it’s in.”
“I hope the court system works out, that Marine Le Pen will head the ticket.”
France has been gripped by political deadlock since centrist President Emmanuel Macron called snap polls in 2024 which he hoped would consolidate his majority but instead gave more seats to the RN in a hung parliament.
“There’s three elements that will break the EU,” Bannon said.
“Number one: Brexit,” Bannon said, referring to the United Kingdom leaving the bloc.
“The second is the election of Donald Trump,” he said.
“The third really big element to kill the EU I think will be the election of Marine Le Pen.”
-AFP
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