Paris (AFP)

The National Rally, a political party that has long been anti-Gaullist, is "the continuity" of General de Gaulle's ideas, while Emmanuel Macron is "the antithesis", assures Marine Le Pen, in an interview published on Friday on the website of Parisian.

"Whether on these two main principles" of the independence of France and the sovereignty of the people, "but also on the defense of the Fifth Republic, the will to reindustrialize, the defense of nuclear power, we are at RN the continuity of big ideas he defended, "said the president of RN, in this interview also published in the daily newspaper to be published on Saturday.

Marine Le Pen even sees "a common point" between Joan of Arc and de Gaulle, "confronted with the collective resignation of the so-called elites", sharing the "refusal to be imposed by a foreign power the direction of our country".

Conversely, she considers "that the absolute anti-de Gaulle is Emmanuel Macron".

The President of the Republic "is not from the country, he is of an economic class, of finance, of a caste. Unquestionably, de Gaulle, he was from France", maintains Marine Le Pen, candidate already declared to the presidential election of 2022.

Macron is for the 2017 presidential finalist "the symbol of submission to special interests, while de Gaulle submitted them to the general interest". "For de Gaulle, the capital of France was Paris, for Macron, it is rather Brussels. Macron is the antithesis, from all points of view, of de Gaulle".

The head of the RN, ex-FN, a party founded in 1972 in particular by former collaborators and supporters of French Algeria, sees no "contradiction" in "paying homage to the vision" of de Gaulle, "while retaining of the episode of French Algeria a critical vision ".

She admits that decolonization "was a movement of the world, and that by adopting it, General de Gaulle demonstrated a form of vision of the long term and the future".

But she continues to judge "deeply unfair and criticizable" the "manner in which the independence of Algeria was carried out and the manner in which the returnees and the harkis were treated".

Marine Le Pen will not go to Colombey-les-deux-Eglises for the 50th anniversary of the call of June 18 but "will take action to pay tribute to him".

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