Marine Le Pen disavows RN MP who believes ministerial positions should be filled by “Franco-French” people

At the National Rally (RN), new controversy around binationality. Outgoing MP Roger Chudeau estimated Thursday evening on BFMTV that a member of the government could not be binational because that posed a “dual loyalty problem”taking the example of former Minister of Education Najat Vallaud-Belkacem. “I think it was a mistake (…) ministerial posts must be held by French-French people, period”he insisted.

A few minutes after this statement, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem challenged Emmanuel Macron on X (ex-Twitter): “do you condone this?”. PS MP Boris Vallaud, husband of the former minister, spoke of a “big lie. Gross liar”. “She is the best of the Republic and you are the shame of her”, he continued. The outgoing president of the Assembly Yaël Braun-Pivet, for her part, considered that “the true face of the RN is still there: uninhibited racism, a sorting out of the French”.

Faced with the growing controversy, the RN MP backpedaled in the early hours of the morning on X qualifying his statement “of strictly personal opinion, and in no way binds the RN”.

This Friday morning on CNews, Marine Le Pen disowned the 74-year-old man. “I am a little stunned that our colleague can express an opinion that is personal to him and which is totally contrary to the project of the national gathering”she said. “I think Jordan Bardella will not leave things as they are”she added, without saying whether Roger Chudeau will be disinvested by the RN for the legislative elections. A hard blow for the “Mr. Education” of the RN to whom the Ministry of National Education seemed promised in the event of Macron-Bardella cohabitation. For his part, Gabriel Attal saw in this episode a legacy of the “Jean-Marie Le Pen’s National Front” for who “A binational is a half-national, corruptible and disloyal”.