Interview of Le Pen’s lead EU candidate in Guadeloupe turns into media freedom debate

Five French MPs from Guadeloupe and three leading EU candidates have publicly expressed their disagreement with Radio Caraïbe International Guadeloupe‘s decision to remove its journalist from its 1 pm news programme following a tense interview with Jordan Bardella, the Rassemblement National’s leading candidate for next year’s EU elections.

During a trip to Martinique and Guadeloupe, from 5 to 8 December, Bardella was interviewed by Radio Caraïbe International Guadeloupe’s journalist Barbara Olivier-Zandronis on 8 December.

“It is profoundly distressing to see that Barbara Olivier-Zandronis’s commitment to accurate reporting and her desire to conscientiously do her job have been punished [by her removal from the 1 pm news bulletin], especially when it was Mr Jordan Bardella who should have been sanctioned for his behaviour” reads the open-letter co-signed by three Guadeloupean deputies and two senators, including the former minister for the outermost regions, Victorin Lurel.

The open letter calls for Olivier-Zandronis reinstatement on grounds of media freedom and protection of journalists.

On Sunday, the lead candidates in the EU elections of the Greens, Renew Europe and The Left, Marie Toussaint, Stéphane, and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, respectively, gave their support.

Saying it was more of a “political debate” and telling Olivier-Zandronis to stop reading her notes and that journalism schools “are not what they used to be”, Bardella finally asked her: “Which political party do you have a membership card for, madam?”

Rassemblement National in Guadeloupe

In the interview on Friday, Olivier-Zandronis questioned Rassemblement National’s clout in the French outermost regions, reminding him that Rassemblement National leader Marine Le Pen and her father before her were not welcomed in the French Caribbeans.

However, while Olivier-Zanronis dismissed Bardella’s point about Rassemblement National receiving almost 70% of the votes in Guadeloupe during the second round of the 2022 presidential elections, “a vote considered by many experts as a protest vote”, she argued that Rassemblement National members in the EU Parliament do not vote with Guadeloupeans in mind.

She cited, in particular, the inclusion of ecocide in the list of EU crimes, the renewal of the fishing fleet and the chlordecone scandal – a pesticide dangerous to human health used in Guadeloupe until 1993 and responsible for numerous illnesses on the island.

Bardella defended his party’s political line, saying he favoured an economic “national patriotism” and worked towards ending EU-negotiated trade agreements, adding that his party did not vote texts contradicting “fishermen’s interests”.

Questioning Bardella’s work in the EU Parliament

Olivier-Zandronis also questioned Bardella’s work ethic in the European Parliament, asking him to comment on why he often asked questions but only suggested one motion for resolution. Bardella answered he had one of the best attendance rates, with 92%.

Reacting to Bardella’s comments at the EU party Identity and Democracy meeting in Florence last week, where he said, “Europe cannot become a five-star hostel for Africa”, Olivier-Zandronis asked: “Do you think that Parisian sidewalks and makeshift camps in Calais have anything in common with hostels?”

Bardella replied that he was against the State Medical Assistance (AME), which provides health care to all people on French territory, arguing that the AME costs more than €1 billion a year and provides free health care to migrants without them contributing to the cost.

Olivier-Zandronis also reminded Bardella that his colleagues voted against the EU recognition of slavery as a crime against humanity in 2020, eventually asking him for his position.

Bardella said he considered slavery as a crime against humanity but that it was not the role of the EU to interfere in the management of these issues.

(Théophane Hartmann | Euractiv.fr)

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