The political establishment prepared detailed plans to “protect the republic” if Marine Le Pen won the French presidency.
“It was a multi-stage rocket. The philosophy, and the imperative priority, was to maintain civil peace,” a senior government official told L’Obs.
The plan, drawn up by a small group of ministers, chiefs of staff and top civil servants, would have involved calling an emergency parliamentary session to discuss the “national crisis and outbreaks of violence” a Le Pen victory was expected to provoke, following horrific violence against police officers by Left-wing antifa groups when she qualified for the second round.
Police in #Paris spending their #MayDay being attacked by anti-Le Pen #Antifa, not even two weeks after 3 officers were shot by a terrorist. https://t.co/w5TrLh8q4i
— Jack Montgomery ن (@JackBMontgomery) May 1, 2017
A confidential note prepared by the intelligence services prior to elections had stated that “without exception, every local public safety directorate has expressed its concern” about the consequences of a Le Pen win, according to the Guardian.
“The country would have come to a halt and the government would have just one priority, assuring the security of the state,” claimed one of the L’Obs sources.
The populist politician would not have been allowed to appoint a new prime minister, and forced to “cohabit” with the existing Socialist Party government until parliamentary elections on the 11th and 18th of June instead.
🎥 Ma déclaration de candidature officielle aux législatives dans la 11ème circonscription du Pas-de-Calais :#DéfendreLaFrance #Circo6211 pic.twitter.com/Pl2JZSk1Qq
— Marine Le Pen (@MLP_officiel) May 19, 2017
Ms Le Pen plans to stage her fightback in the parliamentary elections in the Pas-de-Calais, site of the crime-ridden Jungle encampment, which backed her strongly on May 7th.
The Jungle was notorious as a staging point from which illegal migrants attempted to storm the Channel Tunnel and force their way onto lorries bound for Britain.
President Macron has previously threatened to end the system of juxtaposed border controls at Calais, which which allows British immigration officials to conduct checks in France and French immigration officials to conduct checks in Britain, as punishment for the Brexit vote.
Ms Le Pen, however, has warned that terminating the current arrangement would only bring “more deaths on the shores of our country; on the shores of Britain …. turning Calais into Lampedusa“.
“France must control its own borders,” she said in April 2017. “Some people say that the UK should open up its borders to avoid any problems; I say that France has to control its borders to avoid having [the Jungle] again.”
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