• José Evrard is the head of the list of the Debout la France party for the regional elections in Hauts-de-France.

  • Fiercely sovereignist, the candidate inscribes his anti-European ideas in each of his campaign arguments.

  • On the issue of the environment, José Evrard largely prioritizes nuclear power over wind turbines.

José Evrard is the candidate of Debout la France for the regional elections in Hauts-de-France. He is at the head of one of the seven lists running for the presidency of the region, currently in the hands of Xavier Bertrand, himself a candidate for his own succession. Thursday evening, in the program of BFM Grand Lille,

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, José Evrard presented the main lines of his program on four themes, among which the environment and transport.

At 75, José Evrard, deputy for Pas-de-Calais, is far from being the most famous of the candidates in the region.

And those who know him may be confused by his multiple changes of party: after 36 years in the PCF, he then joined the FN, left it for the Patriots and ended up at Debout la France, the party of Nicolas Dupond-Aignan.

“I am accused of changing parties as well as my shirt, but it is only to keep consistency with my ideas,” José Evrard explains.

This coherence is undoubtedly a fierce sovereignty radically anti-European.

Europe's money, he doesn't want it

José Evrard is so against Europe that the EU funds used to finance regional projects (two billion between 2004 and 2020), he does not want. "I will first go and recover the money that is ours, those that we pay as contributors to Europe," he proclaims. It should be noted that the “sub” of which he speaks, paid by France, are in no case “recoverable” by a regional president.

"We are in a region where health needs require investment", proclaims José Evrard, who wants to build new health establishments in each department, but without really knowing where. “You have to see, as needed,” he eludes. And even though health is not a priority competence of the region, the candidate of Debout la France still castigates Europe: “We are under the caudine forks of the EU which pushed us to remove beds. These are big investments in the region, but there are surely expenses elsewhere that we can eliminate, ”he says, without specifying which ones.

The candidate also wants more public services in the countryside.

But, as with hospitals, their location remains unclear: “You have to see the needs, discuss.

We cannot decree the establishment of a post office but we can decree the need for a post office, ”says José Evrard.

Here again, faced with the region's incompetence in this area, the EU takes it for granted: "It is part of the objectives of the European Union to break public services", insists the candidate.

A "necessary" nuclear

Regarding wind turbines, he will not be the only candidate to vote against nuclear power: “Nuclear power plants are necessary. In terms of lifespan, this is incomparable with wind turbines since a power station can be held for up to 80 years without any problem, ”says José Evrard. Except that the French nuclear fleet is aging and that the region has neither the competence nor the means to renovate them or to finance new installations, such as an EPR. "The region must appeal to the State, except that the State is no longer master of its currency and its investments since it is Europe that decides and the Germans", the candidate fulminates.

A vicious circle from which José Evrard may have found a way out: "The power to act of a regional president is to tell the State to no longer accept the governance of Brussels and to get out of this European situation, ”he concludes.

A "frexit" to say things clearly.

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