The French prime minister, Gabriel Attal, has said voters choosing the far right in the European elections next week risk becoming like British people who regret backing Brexit.
“Don’t be like the British who cried after Brexit,” he told RTL radio on Thursday. “A large majority of British people regret Brexit and sometimes regret not turning out to vote, or voting for something that was negative for their country.
“Today there is more illegal immigration than ever in the UK since they left the European Union. There are massive economic difficulties in the UK because they left the European Union.”
Attal appeared to be referring to recent UK polls showing that if there were a repeat of the 2016 referendum on EU membership, Britain would vote to stay. He said France would “not be stronger by being alone”.
Marine Le Pen’s far-right, anti-immigration Rassemblement National (RN), or National Rally, is solidly ahead in the polls in France, with its list led by Jordan Bardella polling at more than 30%, double the support for the centrist grouping led by the MEP Valérie Hayer, who is backed by Attal and the president, Emmanuel Macron.
Le Pen’s party stopped promising a Frexit, or a French exit from the EU, several years ago and has since tried to expand its voter base by arguing that it wants France to remain in the EU and change the institution from within.
Attal, however, said the party was pursuing policies that would essentially amount to France no longer being able to stay in the EU.
“When you say you are not going to respect the rules of the single market any more, not pay France’s dues and stop respecting most of the treaties, the reality is that we are no longer in the EU,” he said. “Will France be the country that sends the largest contingent of far-right lawmakers to the European parliament?”
He said that if the far right arrived in force in the European parliament, it “could have the capacity to block European institutions, which would lead to very dangerous consequences for our country”.
Attal has taken centre stage in campaigning against Le Pen’s party in recent days as Macron’s pro-European party seeks to avoid a score that lags very far behind the far right.
The latest poll by Ifop for Le Figaro on Monday showed the RN on 33.5%, way ahead of the government alliance gathered around Macron’s Renaissance party on 16%. The Socialist list led by Raphaël Glucksmann, an MEP and former writer and commentator, was on 14%.
Behind them, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s leftwing party, La France Insoumise, or France Unbowed, was on 7%, the same as the mainstream rightwing party of Nicolas Sarkozy, Les Républicains. The Greens were on 6.5%. Reconquête, or Reconquest, the far-right party of the former TV pundit Éric Zemmour, whose European election list is led by Le Pen’s niece Marion Maréchal, was also on 6.5%.
