COPY LINK

POLITICS

Le Pen’s deputy quits party as National Front crisis rumbles on

Marine Le Pen's National Front party continues to lurch from one crisis to another after the vice-president Florian Philippot, one of her closest allies, announced he was quitting on Thursday morning after a very public dispute with his leader.

Published: 21 September 2017 09:16 CEST

Le Pen's deputy quits party as National Front crisis rumbles on

Photo: AFP

Philippot, who up until recently had been one of Le Pen's longstanding and closest allies, told France 2 radio on Thursday morning that he was quitting the party.

It came the morning after after Le Pen stripped him of his role as the party's chief strategist following a much publicised spat between the pair. Although Le Pen did allow to him to keep his title of vice president.

“They told me that I was vice-president of nothing,” Philippot told France 2 radio. “Listen I don't have a desire to be ridiculed. I have never had the desire to do nothing, so of course I am quitting the National Front.”

Le Pen said she “respected” his decision but criticized Philippot for his “strategy of victimisation” throughout the affair.

The rift between Philippot and Le Pen began after the National Front's poor showing in the second round of the presidential election in May, when their candidate was trounced by Emmanuel Macron.

Following that defeat Philippot set up his own movement called “The Patriots” which at the time he said was to help spread Le Pen's message. But the movement became a source of anger among party leaders and eventually resulted in Le Pen demanding that he quit the leadership of The Patriots. Philippot refused.

But in reality the rift between the man, who had led the rebranding of the National Front from an extremist party into a populist, anti-establishment movement, dates back to the presidential election.

Many rivals in the party blame Philippot for being behind Le Pen's promise to pull France out of the euro — a pledge that cost Le Pen crucial support — and for shifting the FN's focus from immigration to economic nationalism.

Many in the party have since called for the National Front to change its stance towards the euro.

READ ALSO:

France's National Front lurches towards crisis despite Le Pen's 10.6 million votes

Philippot however has been adamant that the party must not backdown on its quest for a Frexit and had threatened to walk away from the party if it did.

He eventually followed through on that threat on Thursday.

Philippot said he felt “disappointment and sadness” but also slammed the National Front for being “held by back by its old demons”.

Le Pen's partner and party bigwig Louis Aliot celebrated the news of Philippot's demise.

Aliot blasted Philippot for being “vain, arrogant and a sectarian extremist who tried to muzzle our freedom to debate”.

While his resignation may be welcomed by many in the party who were against him, but it's another sign the National Front has still not recovered from its election hammering.

Philippot follows in the footsteps of Marion Maréchal Le Pen. Marine's niece who was considered a future leader, also walked away from the party after the presidential election citing a desire for a more ordinary life away from politics.

With Marine Le Pen vowing to modernise France's far right party which she says may even include a name change, more strife and infighting lie ahead.

Azerbaijan vehemently rejects the accusation it bears responsibility for the riots that have led to the deaths of five people and rattled the Paris government.

But it is just the latest in a litany of tensions between Paris and Baku and not the first time France has accused Azerbaijan of being behind an alleged disinformation campaign.

The riots in New Caledonia, a French territory lying between Australia and Fiji, were sparked by moves to agree a new voting law that supporters of independence from France say discriminates against the indigenous Kanak population.

Paris points to the sudden emergence of Azerbaijani flags alongside Kanak symbols in the protests, while a group linked to the Baku authorities is openly backing separatists while condemning Paris.

“This isn’t a fantasy. It’s a reality,” interior minister Gérald Darmanin told television channel France 2 when asked if Azerbaijan, China and Russia were interfering in New Caledonia.

“I regret that some of the Caledonian pro-independence leaders have made a deal with Azerbaijan. It’s indisputable,” he alleged.

But he added: “Even if there are attempts at interference… France is sovereign on its own territory, and so much the better”.

“We completely reject the baseless accusations,” Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry spokesman Ayhan Hajizadeh said.

“We refute any connection between the leaders of the struggle for freedom in Caledonia and Azerbaijan.”

In images widely shared on social media, a reportage broadcast Wednesday on the French channel TF1 showed some pro-independence supporters wearing T-shirts adorned with the Azerbaijani flag.

Tensions between Paris and Baku have grown in the wake of the 2020 war and 2023 lightning offensive that Azerbaijan waged to regain control of its breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region from ethnic Armenian separatists.

France is a traditional ally of Christian Armenia, Azerbaijan’s neighbour and historic rival, and is also home to a large Armenian diaspora.

Darmanin said Azerbaijan – led since 2003 by President Ilham Aliyev, who succeeded his father Heydar – was a “dictatorship”.

On Wednesday, the Paris government also banned social network TikTok from operating in New Caledonia.

Tiktok, whose parent company is Chinese, has been widely used by protesters. Critics fear it is being employed to spread disinformation coming from foreign countries.

Azerbaijan invited separatists from the French territories of Martinique, French Guiana, New Caledonia and French Polynesia to Baku for a conference in July 2023.

The meeting saw the creation of the “Baku Initiative Group”, whose stated aim is to support “French liberation and anti-colonialist movements”.

The group published a statement this week condemning the French parliament’s proposed change to New Caledonia’s constitution, which would allow outsiders who moved to the territory at least 10 years ago the right to vote in its elections.

Pro-independence forces say that would dilute the vote of Kanaks, who make up about 40 percent of the population.

“We stand in solidarity with our Kanak friends and support their fair struggle,” the Baku Initiative Group said.

Raphael Glucksmann, the lawmaker heading the list for the French Socialists in June’s European Parliament elections, told Public Senat television that Azerbaijan had made “attempts to interfere… for months”.

He said the underlying problem behind the unrest was a domestic dispute over election reform, not agitation fomented by “foreign actors”.

But he accused Azerbaijan of “seizing on internal problems.”

A French government source, who asked not to be named, said pro-Azerbaijani social media accounts had on Wednesday posted an edited montage purporting to show two white police officers with rifles aimed at dead Kanaks.

“It’s a pretty massive campaign, with around 4,000 posts generated by (these) accounts,” the source told AFP.

“They are reusing techniques already used during a previous smear campaign called Olympia.”

In November, France had already accused actors linked to Azerbaijan of carrying out a disinformation campaign aimed at damaging its reputation over its ability to host the Olympic Games in Paris. Baku also rejected these accusations.