Bardella, who is considered a likely candidate for prime minister if Marine Le Pen wins the presidential election, said that France can no longer continue providing military and financial aid to Kyiv in the same format. According to him, the main constraint has become the critical state of the national budget.
“We are drowning in debt. We are mired in deficits. And it is irresponsible to take on spending commitments and make promises of financial support — without any guarantees”, he said. At the same time, the politician stressed that if Le Pen wins, France will not “abandon” Ukraine, but the format of cooperation must change.
As an alternative, Bardella proposed a model similar to the U.S. approach: support could be accompanied by concessions or guarantees from Ukraine, including access to rare earth metals. He also suggested that all financial aid from European countries should go only toward purchasing weapons and equipment from the defense industries of those same countries.
Bloomberg writes that President Emmanuel Macron wants to закрепить for France the role of one of the leaders of the Western bloc in aid to Kyiv, while Bardella takes positions close to the “philosophy of Donald Trump”. The politician himself said that Trump speaks the language of power, sovereignty, and the defense of national interests, and then criticized the European Union rules that, in his view, hold back French innovation.
Bardella added that France has the best specialists in artificial intelligence and called for using the country’s nuclear power to attract data centers needed for the development of AI. According to him, he does not want France to fall so far behind that it undermines its competitiveness in the coming years.
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