Manon Aubry, the top candidate in the European Parliament (EP) elections for France’s left-wing party La France Insoumise (France Unbowed), told national radio on Wednesday (3 April) that she was in favour of France helping a NATO country attacked by Russia, signalling a softening of the party’s long-standing anti-NATO stance.
The comments by Aubry, who will lead the LFI in June’s European Parliament elections, came after Poland announced last week that a Russian missile had entered Polish airspace.
“We have a duty of mutual assistance [with Poland],” Aubry told public broadcaster Franceinfo. The French politician argued that if Poland or any other NATO member were attacked, France would “have to help them defend themselves”.
“We have to say this because this is diplomacy: if a European country is attacked tomorrow, of course we have to show solidarity,” Aubry said, but did not clarify whether she would also support non-EU Nato members.
EU treaties also stipulate that the bloc can ask for assistance if one of its members is attacked. The issue was raised once by France in the wake of the 2015 Daesh attacks as a way of stepping up “counter-terrorism” measures, which led to tighter border controls across the bloc.
LFI advocates withdrawal from NATO
The LFI has historically taken an anti-NATO line, and its members have consistently called for a radical withdrawal, whether from Washington or Moscow, two months before the European Parliament elections.
“The LFI will call for the immediate withdrawal of France from NATO’s integrated command and then, step by step, from the entire organisation,” read the 2022 manifesto of the now-defunct left-wing alliance NUPES. At the time, the LFI said it would call for a parliamentary vote to put the withdrawal decision into effect.
But Aubry’s ‘softening’ does not necessarily mean that the party has abandoned its core principles. The LFI hopes to prove that it is the only ‘party of peace’ ahead of the EP vote in June, and is seeking a diplomatic solution to the war in Ukraine through direct negotiations with Moscow.
Mélenchon calls for ‘peace talks’ for Ukraine
At the LFI’s first campaign meeting on 16 March, the party’s founder and intellectual leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon criticised European ‘warmongering’ and called instead for peace negotiations with ‘mutual guarantees for both sides’.
As conditions for lasting peace, Mélenchon called for an immediate and permanent ceasefire, a referendum in both Ukraine and Russia at the end of peace negotiations, and demilitarised zones around nuclear power plants.
In the interview, Aubry was also sceptical about the idea of creating a European defence commissioner, as proposed last month by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, saying instead that ‘the priority at this stage is to relaunch the coordination of [European] military production’.
