Orbán voices ‘optimism’ after French far-right win

4 months ago 11

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on Monday (1 July) expressed “optimism” after France’s far-right party came out on top in the first round of the country’s parliamentary elections, saying that voters wanted “change”.

The National Rally (RN) party of Marine Le Pen won a resounding victory in the first round on Sunday, with President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party finishing third, behind the left-wing New Popular Front.

Orbán’s comments came as Hungary took over the European Union’s rotating presidency amid widespread concerns over what critics see as the country’s authoritarian, Russia-friendly government.

“Things cannot go on like this in Brussels, things have to change. That is why the Belgian prime minister fell, that is why the French government fell,” Orbán told Hungarian television channel M1 in an interview Monday night.

“The first source of our optimism is that people want change. But the bureaucrats in Brussels think otherwise, they do not want change,” he said.

“But that adds to our optimism because it makes the fact that change is needed even more obvious.”

The nationalist premier has long railed against what he calls “Brussels elites”, most recently accusing the European Union of fuelling the war in Ukraine.

Hungary has vowed to use its EU presidency to push for its “vision of Europe” under the motto “Make Europe Great Again”, an echo of the rallying cry of former US president Donald Trump.

Visit to Kyiv

Orbán will make his first trip to Kyiv on Tuesday since Russia’s invasion of its smaller neighbour in 2022, to meet with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Financial Times reported on Monday.

Orbán and Zelenskyy’s offices did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests to comment.

Citing people familiar with the matter, the Financial Times reported that Orbán will meet with Zelenskyy and other senior officials in Kyiv just days after the two spoke at an EU summit in Brussels.

Orbán, the closest ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin among EU leaders, has frequently opposed many EU initiatives to support Ukraine in its defence against Moscow’s aggression since its February 2022 invasion.

Last year, Orbán told Putin that Hungary had never wanted to oppose Russia. In early 2024 it took the EU leaders weeks to break the Hungarian prime minister’s veto to extend 50 billion euros in new aid to Ukraine.

Last week, the EU opened membership talks with Ukraine, giving the country a political boost in the midst of its war against Russia’s invasion, although a long and tough road still lies ahead before it could join the bloc.

Orbán has long accused Ukraine’s government of infringing upon the rights of ethnic Hungarians residing in the Ukrainian region of Transcarpathia to speak their native language in education and public administration.