Nigel Farage makes shock prediction about Marine Le Pen after early French election win
The Reform UK leader's comments about Marine Le Pen suggest a change of view from his previous remarks.
Nigel Farage has slammed Marine Le Pen and her party Rassemblement National, warning they will be a “disaster” if elected in France.
Speaking to the website UnHerd after his mega rally in Birmingham on Sunday, Mr Farage warned that Rassemblement National (RN) will be “even worse for the economy than the current lot”.
The comments were made ahead of astonishing results yesterday showing that French voters disagree with Mr Farage’s assessment, and handed the far-right party an emphatic win in the first round of voting.
Ms Le Pen’s party won 33.1 percent of the vote, followed by a left-wing alliance on 28 percent.
President Macron’s centrist camp trailed behind with a paltry 20.8 percent, with Ms Le Pen cheering that the “Macronist bloc has been all but wiped out”.
Mr Farage’s attack on Ms Le Pen may come as a surprise to some observers, after he previously praised her as a “sincere Eurosceptic”.
In 2017 he went further, saying she “would make a good leader of France”.
However, the Reform UK leader did praise another European populist as someone his party could learn from.
In contrast to his scathing assessment of Ms Le Pen, Mr Farage told UnHerd that Italian premier Giorgia Meloni has “been a very good thing”.
“She’s brought her party [Brothers of Italy] into the 21st century, some of the more radical Italians might not like it, but she’s been a very good thing and she’s made her party electable.”
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Mr Farage’s comments following the shock French parliamentary election result are less diplomatic than an intervention by Sir Keir Starmer today, who said he would be willing to work with France’s far right leadership if he wins the election.
Sir Keir insisted he wants a “stronger better and deeper” relationship with Paris despite the growing alarm about the rise of the far-right in France.
He told Express.co.uk: “I will work with any Government in Europe and across the World if we are elected to serve the country.
“That’s what serious Government is about. So yes, we will work with whoever.
“We do think it is important that we make the progressive case to meet the challenges that we face across Europe and across the World.
“I think that only progressive answers will actually make a material difference to the challenges that we are facing.
France has a two-round system of elections, and voters will return to the polls on July 7 to decide whether to hand control of its government to Ms Le Pen’s party.
