The joining of Fabrice Leggeri to the National Rally list in the next European elections appears to be a choice for Marine Le Pen's party.
He headed the European Coast Guard and Border Guard Agency for 7 years, between 2014 and 2022, before being forced to resign.
At the beginning of June, he will be number 3 on Jordan Bardella's list, as he made it official over the weekend.
Fabrice Leggeri, interviewed on RTL this Wednesday morning, justified his decision to join this list.
“I choose the National Rally because for several years, I have been at the heart of European institutions and I have been able to measure the urgency of acting against illegal immigration,” he declared. .
“The European Union sees illegal immigration as a project and not as a problem.
However, the RN is the party which has the lucidity to make the true observation, the courage to implement the proposals and which will have the capacity in France to govern”, he also assured, brushing aside the previous criticisms of the RN.
“There was a journey, an awareness”
“Fabrice Leggeri brings added value, his skills and his experience as a senior civil servant and great servant of the State to our side,” Jordan Bardella said on Monday about the 55-year-old enarque and normalien.
In 2019, the same Jordan Bardella seriously criticized Frontex by describing this agency as “a travel agency for migrants”.
“There is no need to be surprised.
There was a journey, an awareness of the National Rally which, at one point, realized that I really wanted to make Frontex an agency for protecting Europe's borders, in accordance with my mandate,” he said. justified at the microphone Fabrice Leggeri this Wednesday morning.
The candidate also returned to his ouster from Frontex.
Targeted by accusations about his management and his complacency with regard to illegal pushbacks of asylum seekers, the fifty-year-old denounced “nonsense”.
“Frontex has no power to make and refuse asylum decisions,” he assured.
According to him, “the Frontex board and the European Parliament carried out investigations which concluded that there was no proof of any of this”.
Without us being able to confirm his statements.
Bardella praises “a real asset for the credibility of our migration project”
Fabrice Leggeri believed his departure was rather the result of “a process of political intimidation” on the part of “immigration lobbies”, for having “really wanted to protect the external borders of the European Union”.
On Monday, Jordan Bardella considered that the joining of this former director of Frontex to the list he must lead for the European elections "is a real asset for the credibility and the future implementation of our migration project", during a joint trip to Menton (Alpes-Maritimes).
The president of the RN and the former boss of the EU agency responsible for border control went to a border post between France and Italy.