The controversy swells.
This Wednesday, while Marine Le Pen was at a press conference about diplomacy, a protester disrupted the question-and-answer session in front of journalists by brandishing a heart-shaped sign showing the RN candidate and Vladimir Poutine.
The goal: to illustrate his “complacency” towards the Russian president.
VIDEO.
Presidential 2022: a demonstrator expelled from a Marine Le Pen press conference
Quickly, the demonstrator was tackled to the ground by a man, then dragged by the feet and hands to be taken out of the room by another.
A violent evacuation which earned many reactions, in particular from Christophe Castaner, who quipped on Twitter: “At Marine Le Pen, the inconvenient truth, we take it out of the room by pulling it by the feet”.
Le Pen accuses the police
But quickly, the candidate running in the second round of the presidential election tried to provide an answer to this virulent outing of a demonstrator.
For her, those responsible, “they are Mr. Darmanin’s police officers”.
"You have to contact Mr. Darmanin, it's not me who gives the instructions," she assured on Wednesday, on BFMTV, while explaining that she had not seen the scene herself.
Asked about her initial reaction to France 2 this Thursday morning, Marine Le Pen felt that she had "absolutely not questioned the police".
“I will not apologize (…).
A police officer arrested this lady and injured herself.
And as he was injured, she was evacuated by my security service, since the policeman could no longer intervene”, justified Marine Le Pen in the “4 Truths”.
Darmanin responds
The first response of the RN candidate did not quite please the Minister of the Interior.
“We protect all the candidates for the elections (…)”, reacted Gérald Darmanin on BFMTV Wednesday evening, indicating not to comment on the scene in itself, but rather the fact that Marine Le Pen has “named the police officers as responsible for this situation when it is his service of order".
"The person is not dragged by a policeman but by a member of the DPS (
the RN order service
)", he insisted.
"I did not hear her apologize to the police," said the minister, but she "would gain" by doing so, he continued.
Faced with Gérald Darmanin, Jordan Bardella acknowledged that it was indeed a member of his party's order service who had released the demonstrator and not a police officer.
