INTERVIEW
What is the exact nature of the relationship between the National Rally and former Donald Trump strategist Steve Bannon? While several deputies and senators demand the opening of a commission of inquiry after the diffusion Thursday of a report of Special Envoy in which the American politician is proposed to attend meetings between Marine Le Pen and senior French officials by the leaders RN Jerome River and Louis Aliot, the latter evokes a case "stillborn".
"He helps us in finding a banking institution," said the deputy of the Pyrenees-Orientales, invited Tuesday of Sonia Mabrouk on Europe 1, while another sequence from a meeting in London between Steve Bannon, Louis Aliot , and Jérôme Rivière, shows the American polemicist about the financial needs of the RN. But, he recalls, "it did not succeed, since it is our activists, by loans to the party, who financed the campaign".
"Steve Bannon is a friend"
And Louis Aliot denied any involvement of Steve Bannon in meetings with senior officials. "He could have participated, it would not have been a problem, but the opportunity did not come". "That an American come to look at how French or European politics are going, does not seem to me to be anything extraordinary", adds the companion of Marine Le Pen, recalling that the United States are "allies".
Steve Bannon is "a friend, a journalist, a consultant," says Louis Aliot again. Recalling his role in the victorious campaign of the American president, the former European elected believes that "we can feed on his political experiences." And to conclude: "this case is stillborn".
Louis Aliot announces that Steve Bannon will file a complaint against Gilles Le Gendre
This case could, however, continue in the courts. Because if the RN has already indicated his intention to file a complaint for defamation, Louis Aliot also ensures that Steve Bannon himself would file a complaint against Gilles Le Gendre, the boss of the group LREM in the National Assembly, which has used Tuesday "a number of bird names" to qualify the American polemicist. During a press conference, Gilles Le Gendre said he was not convinced by the opening of a commission of inquiry, to "not pollute" the campaign of the Europeans, while qualifying the former Donald Trump's advisor "openly racist politician, white supremacist and conspirator". "We can not let this type of insult or this kind of mis en cause," Judge Louis Aliot.