Paris (AFP)

The vice-president of the National Rally Jordan Bardella told AFP on Friday to join the "national union" of "those who are at the front" facing the epidemic of coronavirus, and want to be "constructive" in the crisis, which the government said he "minimized".

The president of the party Marine Le Pen had, at the beginning of the week, rejected any idea of ​​national union and attacked the government head-on on its management of the crisis by accusing it of "lies" repeated on "absolutely everything".

"We continue to fulfill our role and above all to try to be constructive and to make proposals. (...) And we obviously join the national union behind all those who are at the front and in the front line" said Jordan Bardella in an AFP interview.

"If we are told the truth, I fully agree to make the national union. The error is human and to recognize its errors is perfectly commendable," added number two of the RN. "One of the good news of the last few days is that we see much less Sibeth Ndiaye (the government spokesperson, editor's note), which contributes to the clarity of the debate".

"Now the emergency is to prepare for deconfinement" and to "stop running behind the epidemic by minimizing it," pleaded the RN official.

He also wanted "a war economy" where "all the companies that can do it (massively produce) masks, tests and everything we need".

Mr. Bardella has however brought a "flat" on a possible deconfinement by regions, as the government studies, because people could move "in regions where containment no longer applies, at the risk of spreading the virus ".

But he considered it "logical" to postpone the second round of municipal elections again and does not want "anything to forbid" as a solution, including deconfinement by age groups or digital tracking of the population "on the basis of volunteering. "

For the MEP, "this crisis has highlighted the total weakening of the French state and public services" while the European Union has been "guilty of failing to assist people in danger".

He further claimed that he "was not at all" in tune with the rumor of a coronavirus manufactured "intentionally" in the laboratory, as 40% of RN sympathizers think, according to a recent Ifop poll.

© 2020 AFP