Brexit leader Nigel Farage was quoted on Monday as having called France’s Rassemblement National leader a “disaster” for France. The National Pulse checked the veracity of the comments first published by the neoliberal ‘UnHerd’ website, which has since altered its reporting.
On Monday, UnHerd claimed Farage said, “Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (RN) will be a ‘disaster’ if elected in France.” Farage, however, pushed back against the framing of his comments, telling The National Pulse: “I am very unhappy with the UnHerd headline. Whilst I do not agree with the Le Pen economics, I have said for ten years that she will become the French president.”
“On matters of sovereignty, border controls, and defending national culture, she stands up for people who have been treated with contempt by the elites,” he continued, predicting National Rally “will do very well on Sunday.”
At the time of publication, UnHerd had altered its headline and first paragraph to reflect the change, though the falsely framed story also had a knock-on effect, with the Telegraph and Express newspapers also claiming Farage had slammed Le Pen ahead of her second round of voting on Sunday.
National Rally won the first round of the French elections on June 30, with President Emmanuel Macron‘s Ensemble bloc falling to third place behind a far-left coalition. Macron and the far-left are mulling a joint “republican front” to block the populists in the second round, but the establishment right Les Republicains (Republicans) are, for the first time, declining to support an anti-populist alliance.
Farage hopes to make his own political breakthrough in the British snap election on July 4.
