European envoys question Le Pen on EU agenda over Paris lunch

A group of European ambassadors posted in Paris questioned Marine Le Pen about her plans for France and the EU over a lunch on Wednesday, four officials with direct knowledge of the meeting told POLITICO. The lunch was held at the Hôtel de Beauharnais, the residence of the German ambassador in the French capital.

The discussion mainly covered Le Pen's future EU agenda, the officials said. Le Pen, who the report says is leading the polls in the 2027 election race, has pledged to fight in Brussels to downsize EU institutions, turn the European Commission into a secretariat with no competence on foreign policy, internal security or health, and to cut France's contribution to the EU budget.

The ambassadors came from the eight countries that share a border with metropolitan France: Germany, Spain, Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Monaco and Andorra. The same group met conservative presidential candidate Bruno Retailleau in September and plans to host the other presidential hopefuls, including far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, at their embassies in the coming months.

"I don't know if it reassured or worried them," said an adviser to Le Pen who accompanied her to the lunch. "What is sure is that they can now report back to their capitals what the National Rally wants to do," the adviser added.

Le Pen was mainly questioned about her plans to downsize the EU, on bilateral issues, and about US President Donald Trump after his defeat in the midterm elections, according to the report. The National Rally has progressively distanced itself from Trump, and Jordan Bardella said on Wednesday that his party was not affected by the result, suggesting Trump's popularity was undermined by the war in the Middle East and its economic consequences.

Le Pen has also campaigned for stricter border checks, which could affect the countries whose envoys she met; all of them apart from Andorra and Monaco are in the Schengen free-movement area. "There is a general interest on what would her stance be on the key issues of mutual interest and cooperation on which we are working with France," one diplomat from a participating country said. The adviser said Le Pen regularly meets ambassadors and that in December she and Bardella met US ambassador Charles Kushner.