Leaders of Spain, Germany, Portugal urge French voters to reject far-right Le Pen

By Shweta Desai

PARIS (AA) - As France heads for crucial polls to elect the country’s next president, European leaders rallied Thursday in support of incumbent Emmanuel Macron and warned French voters against choosing "a far-right candidate who openly sides with those who attack our freedom and our democracy."

“We need a France that defends our common European values,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Portugal’s premier Antonio Costa appealed in a jointly published column in Le Monde, France’s leading news daily.

The three leaders noted that the second round of the presidential election on April 24 “is not an election like the others” as the French are facing a crucial choice “not just for France but for all of us in Europe.”

Without naming either of the final candidates -- Macron or far-right contender Marine Le Pen -- they said the French have the “choice between a Democratic candidate who believes that France is stronger in a powerful and autonomous European Union and a far-right candidate who openly sides with those who attack our freedom and our democracy – fundamental values that come directly from the French Enlightenment.”

The European leaders believe that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine is an attempt to rewrite history and it "targets the values that France and our countries defend: democracy, sovereignty, freedom and the rule of law." They said Putin was an ideological and political model for the populists and the extreme right political parties to make nationalist demands “even if these politicians today try to distance themselves from the Russian aggressor.”

Macron accused the National Rally party’s candidate Le Pen of depending on “Mr. Putin” due to her longstanding ties with Moscow and for financing her party through a 9 million euro ($9.7 million) loan from a Czech-Russian bank. Le Pen has denied being friends with Putin or drawing financial favors.

Her statements of wanting a rapprochement between Russia and NATO if elected, withdrawing France’s membership from NATO, reducing Paris’s contribution to the European Union, and overriding EU laws have alarmed world leaders.

Macron, on the other hand, has reinforced that France is stronger with the EU, supporting NATO militarily against Russia and working towards peaceful solutions to the Ukraine war. He has denoted that the election in France is a referendum on (whether to remain in or leave) the EU.

"We need France by our side...A France which defends our common values, in a Europe in which we recognize ourselves, which is free and open to the world, sovereign, strong and generous at the same time," the three leaders said, commending France’s leadership and solidarity with Europe in the crises time including the COVID-19 pandemic.

Alluding to Macron’s project and his European leadership, they said: “It is this France that is also on the April 24 ballot” and hoped “that the citizens of the French Republic will choose it."