Criminal lawyer and sovereigntist right-wing politician, former MEP Alexandre Varaut joins the ranks of the National Rally in the European Parliament after his election on June 9.
The joining of Alexandre Varaut on the list of the National Rally was not a surprise, the Parisian lawyer has long been close to the tenors of the extreme right. Placed in 13th position, the candidate was practically sure of joining the European Parliament given the polls which credited Jordan Bardella’s list with more than 30% of voting intentions. The European elections of June 9 confirmed his victory.
With this elected official, the National Rally list plays a winning move by putting in its pocket a political figure who has navigated between the parties of the French right and has already rubbed shoulders with the benches of the European Parliament in 1999 and 2004. The man is also a representative of the upper socio-professional category (CSP+) that the far-right party has difficulty attracting.
A Europe where “we have the right to say no”
Guest of Radio Notre-Dame with the European elections, the Parisian lawyer indicated that he wanted “a Europe of cooperation, a Europe à la carte and not on the menu” where everyone can take what serves their national interests. With his fellow MEPs from the National Rally he wants to “stop a Europe of obligations” to make the continent a place “where we have the right to say yes and the right to say no”. As soon as the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 was signed, to which he was fiercely opposed, Alexandre Valraut expressed his disagreement with migration policy, and the use of Frontex, the European border and coast guard agency.
In a video broadcast by the RN to announce his candidacy, the elected official promised to commit himself against an institution which “imposes a migratory submersion and an avalanche of standards which suffocate the economy”, before explaining that he wanted to “rebuild together […] what the right has damaged through cowardice and the left through ideology.”
From the UMP to the far right
Present but discreet on the political scene since 1995, Alexandre Varaut first got involved with the Movement for France (MFP) party created by Philippe de Villiers shortly after the presidential election of the same year. Member of the European Parliament between 1999 and 2004, he attacked “handiphobia”. At the end of his mandate, he joined the UMP and failed twice in the elections: the regional elections in 2004 and the legislative elections in 2007 where he was a candidate in the fifth constituency of Seine-Saint-Denis. He remains close to the party of which he became national secretary in 2013 before joining the RN in 2022.
Lawyer, Alexandre Varaut has defended far-right personalities on several occasions: Marine Le Pen in the affair of the parliamentary assistants, the mayor of Fréjus David Rachline, Frédéric Chatillon formerly close to the president of the RN and the zemmourist Guillaume Peltier in the part of an investigation into the use of public funds. Alexandre Varaut was also the lawyer for La Manif Pour Tous and campaigns with his wife Mayté Varaut, president of the association Les Amis de Jérôme-Lejeune, against abortion for parents whose child has Down syndrome.