A Le Pen Win in France Will Seal the Fate of the EU

by Mark Angelides

Marine Le Pen’s Front Nationale has been gaining momentum in the upcoming elections. Whilst many polls have put her in the lead for the first round, she has consistently been touted to lose the second. But now she has begun talking about complete withdrawal from the European Union (EU), she may find a lot more support in the second round of voting. Euroscepticism is rife on the continent, and if France leaves, the whole EU edifice will soon crumble.
The most recent polls have Le Pen at 18% (which is high when you consider there are at least 7 candidates running) for the first round, which places her comfortably ahead of all other competitors. The standard thinking is that when voters go to the second round (which they will if no candidate receives more than 50%), both Fillon and Macron’s voters will coalesce to handily beat Le Pen. What pollsters have failed to take into account is the growing disillusionment with the EU project. Voters are looking over the Channel and seeing a Britain that has not been utterly destroyed by voting to leave. And they are looking inwards to other European nations and seeing the unraveling of formerly stable societies. And finally, they are looking at themselves, and wonder if life would not be better as a free nation.
The EU is divided into Net Contributors and Beneficiaries. Germany, Britain and France are the three largest. With Britain on its way out, and France on the brink, the ability of the EU to proceed with its agenda will fail. And with that, the project collapses.
To stay afloat, other nations would have to drastically increase their contributions. Italy being the fourth largest contributor would have to make up an enormous short fall. But with Beppe Grillo’s “5 Star Movement” snapping at the heels of the political elite, the Italian government will find it almost impossible to get public support for extra payments. Sweden is in such a pit of its own creation; having boasted of being a “Humanitarian Superpower’, the mass-inundation of people never likely to work is going to cost the Swedes 33% of their entire 2017 budget.
So that leaves Germany. Already the Chief contributor, the odds of Frau Merkel being able to siphon off more cash to feed the EU monsters are slim to none. Thus collapses the bureaucratic monolith that has sucked sovereignty and cash from the EU nations for a generation. This will not be a sad day.
There could once again be a “real” free-trade bloc within Europe; one that is not in thrall to lobbyists and globalists, one that actually benefits the citizens of Europe. Vive Le Pen!