The singer Francis Lalanne and the controversial comedian Dieudonné announced on Thursday that they were making a joint list for the European elections, wanting to be "an alternative to political dictatorship", against "the Republic", according to them "the opposite of democracy".
Under the banner “Free France”, the list presented itself as “a coalition of citizen associations”. “Too often, we have confronted the republican system in a dispersed manner. The time for unity has arrived on the European Boulevard,” explained Francis Lalanne.
“The Republic imposes an elective system on citizens which consists of voting and, by voting, renouncing one's sovereignty: that is to say, the Republic is the opposite of democracy,” he argued, by proposing the establishment of an “imperative mandate”.
In the event of an election to the European Parliament, the members of the list "will not have the power of decision, (which) will belong to the citizens' assembly which would have brought them to responsibilities", he explained. “Our elected officials will not decide anything,” he added.
The comedian Dieudonné, for his part, presented himself as “the pebble in this great mechanism of smoke and mirrors, cynicism and lies” of the European Parliament. “I think that’s my place: as long as you’re voting for a comedian, you might as well vote for a professional,” he quipped.
“They made a monster of me”
The one who was convicted 31 times, notably for racial insults and incitement to hatred, also claimed to have "calmed down", advocating "respect for everyone, love and forgiveness", and seeing in his “role” of MEP a way of “unmasking the impostors”. “They made a monster of me, the monster appears before them,” he summarized.
Among the other personalities announced on the list, Christian Cotten presented himself as an “unfriendly psychosociologist and crazy psychotherapist”. This anti-vaccine figure (like Francis Lalanne) and the conspiratorial sphere has been questioned in the past for his proximity to and his defense of sectarian movements.
He was already on the list for the European elections led in 2009 by Dieudonné (1.30% of the votes cast), put together by the Anti-Zionist Party, which has since dissolved. The comedian had already appeared on the EuroPalestine list five years earlier (1.83%).
Francis Lalanne, for his part, led the Yellow Alliance list, which was intended to be a political extension of the Yellow Vest movement, during the 2019 European elections (0.54%).