Against a backdrop of a historically low Euro, energy shortages, and a monumental cost of living crisis—all of which were, at least in part, precipitated by the EU’s sanctions against Russia—Marine Le Pen, the de facto leader of Rassemblement National (RN), has sharply criticized the measures, saying that they have enriched Russia while making France’s working and middle-classes poorer.
In her statements, which came during a BMFTV television broadcast on Saturday, July 10th, Ms. Le Pen, who last month was easily re-elected as a member of the National Assembly for the 11th constituency of Pas-de-Calais, said that the bloc’s sanctions were “punishing the French” while “enriching Russia,” the newspaper France-Soir reports.
“It’s good to consider measures against inflation. But one, they must be effective, and two must not be the cause of worsening inflation,” Ms. Le Pen said in response to a question posed by the reporter.
To further elucidate the predicament that European economies now find themselves in as a result of the EU’s push to cut Russian gas and oil imports, Ms. Le Pen then mentioned the fact that the Europeans are now buying oil and gas from India, which itself purchased from the Russian Federation.
“In this area, sanctions have been completely ineffective. Sanctions have enriched Russia, and above all, they punish the French more than they punish Russia,” Ms. Le Pen argued.
The same day, French Economy Minister Burno Le Maire (LREM), while speaking to members of the press at the Aix-en-Provence Economic Meetings, warned that a worsening energy crisis “can have an absolutely major impact on our daily lives, on employment, on the functioning of our companies, on the French industrial tool.”
It will be “the most important subject of the coming months,” Le Maire added.
The French economy minister is hardly alone in his less than rosy outlook. Late last month, Germany’s current finance minister Christian Lindner (FDP)—along with Peer Steinbrück, who served as finance minister under Angela Merkel—gave similar warnings to German citizens, as The European Conservative previously reported.
Lindner, who heads the liberal, pro-business Freie Demokratische Partei (FDP), contends that a massive economic downturn, the likes of which Germany has not seen in many decades, is on the horizon due to a cocktail of soaring energy costs, ongoing supply-chain problems, and historic levels of inflation.
In just a “few weeks or months [Germany] could have a very worrying situation” on its hands, the finance minister warned.
Steinbrück (SDP), for his part, predicted that Germans are set to face “three to five very difficult years” that will likely see unemployment levels soar, among other things. The former finance minister ominously added that the German population had not yet come to grips with the severity of the situation at hand.
