The former head of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontexfor its acronym in English), Fabrice Leggeri, has joined Marine Le Pen as a National Rally (RN) candidate in the upcoming European elections. His candidacy will focus even more attention in these elections on the inability of European and French elites to control the problem of illegal immigration.
Even more so after the statements that Leggeri has made in several interviews in the French media in recent days in which he has assured that The European Commission sees illegal immigration “as a project and not as a problem”.
The former head of Frontex, third on the list of the RN, the party now led by Jordan Bardella, resigned from his position in April 2022 when he realized, as he has confessed, that he no longer had the necessary political means to carry out the mission that the EU had entrusted to it: protecting European borders. «The commissioner told me the following: ‘Your job is to bring the immigrants back and welcome them because they come for love. And whether they like it or not, we are an aging continent and that is why we must let them in‘”, said Leggeri, who also explained that this change in Frontex’s strategy was accentuated after the arrival of Ursula Von der Leyen to the presidency of the European Commission in 2019.
“Faced with this new orientation and the attacks and intimidation that I suffered, I realized that to defend my convictions and the continent from the migratory onslaught, I had to get involved in politics myself,” he explained.
His management of the European agency – from 2015 to 2022 – caused him to be in the crosshairs of NGOs and the left, who considered that his administration was “too firm.” Leggeri was even investigated for the European Anti-Fraud Office, which accused him of the irregular return of immigrants.
«Because I wanted to control immigration, they pressured me and I felt general abandonment. The French Government pressured me to resign. Germany was not willing to support me. The European Commission, clearly hostile towards me, wanted me to leave. Furthermore, I have faced attacks from various pressure groups and NGOs, which they act against the sovereignty of the States and against the will of the people French and European,” Leggeri denounced in an interview in The Sunday Journal.
His experience during seven years at Frontex convinced him of the need to oppose Von der Leyen’s Europe. «In 2019 there was a change of course, it is time to put an end to it. From now on we must fight against this European Commission that encourages and tolerates this migratory collapse«, he assured.
Le Pen’s now colleague assures in the aforementioned interview that The European Commission’s Pact on Migration and Asylum will encourage the migratory influx and that its real objective is to distribute immigrants throughout the EU and, at the same time, financially sanction member states that refuse. «What catches my attention in this Pact on Migration is the contempt for the sovereignty of the States and the absence of concrete measures to put an end to human trafficking that physically transports hundreds of thousands of migrants on European soil to our borders. “We must become aware of the magnitude of this phenomenon and the humanitarian issues it involves,” he demanded.
Leggeri has made his candidacy for the elections to the European Parliament official on his account. X (formerly Twitter). «I join Jordan Bardella’s list because I want France and Europe to regain control of their borders«, Has published.
Voting intention surveys for these elections provide a clear advantage for the RN, with 30% of the votes, ten points above the coalition of French President Emmanuel Macron. The incorporation of Fabrice Leggeri could further increase the distance between Le Pen’s men.