in France, the far right received more than 30% of the vote

That’s how it happened, though.

The situation is somewhat similar now in the French elections: what if the far-right candidate manages to take power in one of the most important and largest countries in the EU?

He managed to catch the neck of his worst rival, including the far right, in the final stages Eric Zemmouriin, and improve their performance in the elections five years ago.

Now he is more prepared than in 2017. At the same time, the image of Macron as a fresh reformer has waned after five years of reign.

More than 30% of French people supported the far right in the first round. Zemmour received 7.1 percent and Le Pen 23.4 percent of the vote.

If Le Pen wins, it could know comparable to brexit, if not a bigger change for the EU.

France is a founding member of the EU and, together with Germany, is the “engine” of EU cooperation – without an agreement between the two, there can be virtually no broad lines. Germany and France are also each other’s most important partners in international diplomacy.

– The second round of elections is a major issue for Europe. The effects on Finland come from the effects it has on the EU’s operations. Changing the line of one of the most important EU countries by almost 180 degrees would lead to a rather serious crisis in the EU, a leading business expert Janica Ylikarjula says.

Both the EU and the NATO Alliance’s headquarters in Brussels will be watching the campaigning and opinion polls in the second round of the French presidential election for the next two weeks.

NATO allies are watching to see if France, the EU’s only nuclear power, remains a reliable partner in the crisis in Ukraine. Le Pen is pushing France for “freer hands” in security policy.

That means he wants to pull France out of NATO’s command structures. He no longer wants France to take part in world conflicts that “are not its own.”

When elected, he also intends to end military industrial co-operation with Germany and intensify co-operation with non-EU Britain.

In addition, Le Pen estimates in the first round under a newspaper interview that after the war Vladimir from Putin may well become a French ally. Le Pen’s party received direct funding from a Russian bank in the last election.

If Le Pen manages to beat Macron in the second round, he will likely start putting sticks in the EU stroller.

His goal is to replace the current European Union with a “union of free and sovereign European nations”. It would put an end to the current kind of EU that Le Pen sees as an “ideologically driven federalist superstate.”

He wants to reduce French membership fees and deepen cooperation with like-minded politicians such as Hungary Viktor Orbánin.

Although Le Pen has backed down from his demands to separate France from the EU, the Schengen area of ​​free movement and the euro, he wants to change the rules of the game in the EU.

His campaign has traits that run counter to current movement principles. He wants to renegotiate the Schengen agreement so that border controls are partially reinstated and the movement of people from outside the EU is restricted.

He would increase the number of border guards in France. The effect on Finnish companies’ export trade would be to reintroduce controls on goods entering France “to combat fraud”.

Le Pen promises to hold a referendum on immigration within six months if elected.

On that basis, it would be enshrined in the Constitution that international courts could not force France to “pursue an immigration policy contrary to the will of its people”. Immigration and asylum policies in EU countries are now based on, for example, the Geneva Convention on Refugees and the European Convention on Human Rights.

Le Pen also argues that the referendum would completely ban immigration that “changes French identity.” For example, family reunification would be a rare exception.

Islamist, totalitarian ideologies would be banned by law. Convictions, especially for violent crimes, would be intensified and the right to pardon would be weakened.

Le Pen’s campaign is reminiscent of brexit rhetoric in that Le Pen is also pushing for the restoration of France’s “greatness”.

Proponents of Brexit spoke of the restoration of the former British Empire, the Commonwealth. Le Pen, on the other hand, wants to work more closely with both the French overseas territories and the French-speaking world in general, rather than with its current allies.

According to EK Ylikarjula, Le Pen’s EU program is not very clear.

– He tells more about what he opposes, ie about actions that he considers to be against France’s interests. He talks about decriminalizing EU legislation, ending free movement and terminating EU trade agreements, Ylikarjula says.

You can discuss the topic until 23:00 on Tuesday evening.