Korwin-Mikke 'too extreme' for France's Le Pen
PR dla Zagranicy
Peter Gentle
25.06.2014 10:02
MEP Janusz Korwin-Mikke says France's Front National leader Marine Le Pen thinks his 'New Right' party in the European parliament is “too extreme” to form an alliance with.
Janusz Korwin Mikke and Marine Le Pen: photo: wikipedia/CC
Korwin-Mikke, whose extreme views on women's rights, anti-EU statements and the crisis in Ukraine – where he has given his support to the position of Russia's Vladimir Putin – have apparently frightened off the French far-right leader from forming an alliance with the Polish 'New Right Congress” in the European parliament.
Negotiations on forming a new anti-EU bloc within the parliament have been going on since the May elections, where Korwin-Mikke's party gained 7.5 percent of the vote in Poland.
Ahead of today's deadline for forming a voting caucus in the European parliament, Korwin-Mikke, a long-time political maverick – famous for eating his tax returns outside the treasury ministry in Warsaw in a protest against taxation in general – told the Dutch Nieuwsuur TV show that whereas the Netherlands' anti-immigration party PVV, led by the controversial Geert Wilders, was for joining forces with New Right Congress MEPs, Marine Le Pen was against the idea.
“Yesterday, it looked like the alliance would happen. But then Le Pen suddenly thought we were too extreme,” Korwin-Mikke told Dutch TV on Tuesday.
The Front National has been trying to distance itself from its neo-nazi origins in France and appears to believe joining an alliance with the 'New Right' would harm its new image.
Korwin-Mikke has declared himself a monarchist, thinking elections and democracy are a waste of time, and in the lead up to the European parliament elections said that the European Commission building in Brussels “should be turned into a brothel”.
The bow-tie wearing politician has also said in the past that “women have a lower IQ than men” and in February this year said that prisoners in the Nazi German WWII Auschwitz death camp were better off than some unemployed in Poland.
“They had three meals a day served and were guaranteed work,” he told the TVN broadcaster.
Korwin-Mikke's New Right is currently running third in opinion polls in Poland. (pg)