via Associated Press
POLITICS – Since this Friday, June 24, the entire French political class has denounced the revocation of the right to abortion by the Supreme Court of the United States. All? No, there is a party, and not the least, which remains discreet: The National Rally.
Neither tweet nor declaration for Marine Le Pen or her staff, yet accustomed to social networks, at a time when on the right and on the left, we proclaim our concern in the face of such a regression. The majority and the left have already announced that they want to secure access to abortion by enshrining it in the Constitution when several Republican figures call for “preserve this fundamental right.”
This is the case, for example, of Éric Ciotti, the deputy of the Alpes Maritimes, who speaks of “appalling decline” or Valérie Pécresse who is indignant at a “worrying and shocking regression of freedoms.” Further to the right, MP Emmanuelle Ménard also reacted by pointing to an attack “on the freedoms of all American women, whatever their convictions”. In this context, the National Gathering shines by its silence.
The embarrassment at the RN?
One of the few to have spoken from near or far on the subject is the (new) deputy Philippe Ballard, this Saturday June 25 on franceinfo. Asked about the historic decision of the Supreme Court, the spokesperson for the far-right party kicked into touch, refusing to discuss American policy.
“I am a French parliamentarian, I am the spokesperson for a French political party, we are sovereignists, we are not going to meddle in the affairs of others”, he thus replied, as you can see it below (from 1′50).
A small pirouette which testifies to the embarrassment of the National Rally? It is clear that the executives of the Lepenist party had less modesty in commenting on American national news when questioning the election of Joe Biden against Donald Trump, the one who made this spectacular setback on abortion possible. in the USA.
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It is indeed difficult to condemn the consequences of a policy and of the choices made by a man taken as a model, or as a source of inspiration. So rather than dwell on the benevolence of his political formation towards the American billionaire when he was in power, Philippe Ballard immediately returned to the “clear” position defended by Marine Le Pen on abortion: status quo.
“The Veil law, we do not touch it”, he thus launched, before confirming “it is the position of the party” when the journalist on set asks him to confirm if he is talking about the authorization abortion “whatever happens”. But this position, defended by the boss of the National Rally since her 2017 campaign, has not always been so clear.
The turpitudes of Le Pen
On the contrary, the FN (now RN) was for a long time radically anti-abortion under the aegis of Jean-Marie Le Pen. Admittedly, Marine Le Pen stood out in 2002 from the hard line embodied by her father, who advocated the repeal of pro-abortion laws, but the runner-up in the last two presidential elections has often taken an ambiguous position.
In 2012, during the presidential campaign, for example, she used the term “comfort abortions” by targeting “women who abort two, three, four times” and who would make abortion a kind of “means of contraception”. It even raises the specter of a restriction on reimbursements. “Aborting three or four times in a row should not weigh in financial terms on the national community, at a time when one in three French people is not treated properly”, she says during a conference organized by the magazine Elle at Sciences Po, as you can see below (from 14′).
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Since then, Marine Le Pen, anxious to “normalize” her image, has left this vocabulary aside… despite the battering of her niece Marion Maréchal, in 2017, then still in favor of abandoning “full and unlimited reimbursement of abortion.” A public outing which will have earned the former executive of the RN, now at Reconquest, a severe reframing.
“Everyone can review their positions”, considers Philippe Ballard today to justify the change of foot of the boss of the RN in ten years. But how far? The National Rally, absent from the media debates since the historic decision of the American Supreme Court, will have to come out of the woodwork and decide on the ambition of the elected representatives of the Nupes and the majority to include access to abortion in the Constitution. And their vote will be scrutinized.
See also on The HuffPost: Abortion rights in the Constitution? LREM caught up in its old votes
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