George Simion has accused French President Emmanuel Macron of “dictatorial tendencies” and compared France to Iran in an appearance on a French television station.
Nationalist Simion has avoided one-on-one television debates in Romania this week with his opponent Nicusor Dan ahead of the May 18 runoff, and instead traveled to Brussels, Poland and France to meet politicians.
His comments on the French conservative CNews channel appeared to shock journalists in the studio and drew immediate rebuke.
“Emmanuel Macron has dictatorial tendencies,” he told the audience. The moderator responded: This is “promising” for Romania’s relations with France. I don’t think you’ll be getting an invite to the Elysee (presidential) Palace too soon.”
“I don’t need an invitation,” Simion quipped.
“I want to tell you that France is a democracy that has no dictatorial tendencies. If you already call your counterpart dictator, this is ‘promising’ for Romania’s relations with France,” the French journalist said ironically.
Simion went on to compare France with Iran: “I draw a parallel with Iran, with the ayatollahs who decide who can (and who can’t) run,” he said, referring to the exclusion of Marine Le Pen from running for office after she was found guilty of embezzling European parliamentary funds through a fake jobs scam.
The Euroskeptic candidate went on to criticize French cities as dirty and dangerous.
“You have lost the relationship with God, with your heroes, you no longer know who you are. It’s time to stop mutilating your children with sex reassignment surgeries. (…) More and more French cities are dirty, dangerous and godless,” Simion added.
A journalist in the studio told Simion: “You pretend to criticize Putin, but you repeat Vladimir Putin’s arguments.”
“You offend many French people by talking like that,” another journalist added.
Here are Simion’s main statements:
- “I love France and the French people, but I don’t like Emmanuel Macron’s dictatorial tendencies. France got involved in the elections in Romania. The French ambassador to Romania discussed with the president of the Constitutional Court that annulled the elections in Romania. The French ambassador has traveled these weeks to all regions of the country to convince businessmen to support my opponent, the mayor of Bucharest.”
- “It is very serious. We are not Iran, a country where an ayatollah can say who can run. This is your case in France, where Marine Le Pen was effectively banned by some judges, it is about this ability of the judge to say who can run and who cannot. In Romania, the elections were annulled without presenting a reason,” said George Simion.
- “I don’t need to be invited to the Elysee Palace. I respect the French people, the French culture, but I don’t respect imperial tendencies, I don’t respect Emmanuel Macron’s intervention in our democracy.”
- “For the first time we have free elections in Romania.
- “Macron is the only European president who has spoken about Russian interference, which does not exist.”
- “You have lost the relationship with God, with your heroes, you no longer know who you are. It’s time to stop mutilating your children with sex change surgeries” and “more and more French cities are dirty, dangerous and godless.”
- “Our position is the same as that of our strategic ally, the United States, we want … a ceasefire,” he said referring to the war in Ukraine. (“Our position is the same as that of our strategic partner the US. We want a ceasefire”)
- “I believe that Eastern Europe will wake up the whole continent and, just because we are in the East, do not confuse us with Russia or with Ukraine, which often has Soviet reflexes.”
- “Poland is a model for us.”
George Simion was a no-show in an electoral debate on TVR on Thursday evening for the third evening running.
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