The leader of the far-right National Rally party, Marine Le Pen, attacked football star Kylian Mbappe after he spoke about the “catastrophic” results of the French legislative elections, in which the far-right gained ground.
Le Pen refused during an interview with the network “CNN“On Thursday, Mbappe’s statements, saying that he “is not a representative (of migrants).”
The captain of the French national football team stressed on Thursday that it was “very urgent” to vote in the second round after the “catastrophic” results of the first round, without explicitly naming the National Rally.
“I think more than ever we need to go out and vote. We cannot leave our country in the hands of these people,” he said in Hamburg on the eve of France’s Euro 2020 quarter-final against Portugal.
“There is an emergency. We cannot leave our country in their hands. It is really urgent. We have seen the results, they are catastrophic,” Mbappe said.
“The French are tired of receiving lectures and advice on how to vote,” Le Pen said.
She added: “Mbappe does not represent the French people of immigrant origin, because there are a large number of them who live on the minimum wage, and who cannot afford housing or heating, compared to people like Mr. Mbappe.”
Total political ambiguity
France concluded a tense election campaign on Friday, two days before historic legislative elections that will leave the country either under the control of the far right or mired in unprecedented political turmoil, according to Agence France-Presse.
The election campaign officially ended at midnight (Friday at 22:00 GMT), amidst a state of great division and fragmentation in a country considered one of the pillars of the European Union, after seven years of Emmanuel Macron’s presidency.
Outgoing Prime Minister Gabriel Attal spoke on Friday of the possibility of political obstruction, stressing that his government could ensure the continuity of the state “for the necessary time” if a clear majority does not emerge from the ballot boxes.
“The danger today is a majority dominated by the far right, and this would be a disastrous project,” Attal warned on France 2 public channel on Friday evening.
Since the president’s surprise decision to dissolve the National Assembly after his camp’s failure in the European elections on June 9, developments reshaping the French political landscape have confirmed the rise of the National Rally party, which hopes to come to power next week.
International positions
In international positions, the leftist Brazilian President, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, stressed the importance of “ensuring democracy” to confront the far right, which hopes to win the legislative elections in France on Sunday, and welcomed Mbappe’s position.
“Did you hear Mbappé’s comments? He called on the French people not to let fascists, Nazis and the far right rule France, because he knows what problems there are when extremists come to power,” Lula said on Thursday evening.
Former Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said during a roundtable in France on Friday that the far right “has the potential to lead to a broader destabilization of both Europe and the European integration process, and we are therefore facing an existential threat.”