“There is history. It matters to me. I never believed that the Germans crossed the border several times just for the sake of crossing borders,” Mélenchon said — though he insisted he is not “anti-German.”
Berlin aims to become Europe’s predominant military power in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and American retrenchment from Europe — a move Mélenchon argued was motivated by economic interests, with Germany hoping that a stronger defense industry can make up for losses from its struggling auto industry.
Le Pen is up in arms against the EU budget (and von der Leyen)
Standing by her pledge to drastically cut France’s contribution to the EU budget, Le Pen went all out against European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, accusing her of wanting to “bypass democracy” by fast-tracking negotiations on the EU’s multi-year budget.
Von der Leyen’s “love of democracy is not evident in all of these decisions,” Le Pen said, saying the Commission chief was trying to avoid “accepting the will of the people” by speeding up negotiations before elections next year in France, Poland, Spain and Italy.
Attal marches in Macron’s footsteps on Europe
Attal, who leads President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist political party Renaissance (though the relationship between the two is notoriously frosty), pitched a strongly pro-European agenda, advocating for further economic integration as well as cooperation on environmental and tech regulation.
He once again pushed the idea of a United States of Europe, arguing that the bloc should become a “power continent” that could stand up to China and the U.S. But Attal suggested that could only be done by moving forward with a multi-speed Europe, in which a “small number” of countries, rather than all 27 EU member states, work on ambitious projects like a capital markets union.