Marine Le Pen, said her country should adopt U.S. President Donald Trump‘s tough stance toward countries unwilling to welcome deported illegal immigrants, asking Paris to use the Republican’s pressure on Colombia as a model for its cooperation with Algeria.
The statements by Le Pen, who polls suggest will win France‘s presidential election in 2027 if she is allowed to run, illustrate how Trump’s tough stance on illegal immigration is likely to affect politics in Europe.
Though the Republican is not popular in Europe, migratory flows to the continent in recent years have pushed much of its population to the right, with many more voters responding positively to his once-unheard-of views.
In one of the most recent examples of this trend, the Christian Democrats (CDU) received on Wednesday the support of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in parliament on a non-binding proposal to limit immigration to Germany, breaking a decades-old taboo of working with the far right.
And France has turned more to the right as well. But conservative Interior Minister Bruno Retaix, who has made illegal immigration and violence linked to drug trafficking his top priorities, is finding it hard to persuade Algeria and Morocco to accept more migrants deported from France.
In an interview broadcast late last Wednesday night, Le Pen assessed that France should adopt a more aggressive stance towards Algeria, following Trump’s example with Colombia.
The Republican US president threatened to impose harsh tariffs and sanctions on Colombia if it did not accept the deported migrants, forcing Bogota to back down.
“I would do exactly what Trump did with Colombia,” Le Pen explained, adding that she would cut off all funding to Algeria and move to suspend the entry permits of Algerians and their political leaders if they refused to cooperate with Paris on the deportations.
“There are retaliatory measures which are quite normal,” he said. “Why do we show such weakness to countries that spit in our face morning, noon and night?”
Le Pen also said she was impressed by the first days of Trump’s presidency.
“He made commitments and in the first days (of his presidency) he told the American people: ‘You elected me to do this and I’m doing it,'” he said. “It’s been a long time since we haven’t had that feeling in France,” he assessed.
Instead, Le Pen stressed, Retailleau “talks, talks, talks, but when will he take action? (…) I would like to see Mr. Retaio do more than he is doing now.”
Ask me anything
Explore related questions