The former head of EU border agency Frontex has rejected claims that he was complicit in so-called “crimes against humanity” during his tenure.
Fabrice Leggeri, who now serves as a candidate of Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (RN) party, told Brussels Signal that such charges were an attempt by pro-migrant NGOs to “intimidate” him, as well as others in charge of border control efforts.
“The NGOs that are in favour of all migrants being allowed to come never accepted that I was complying with the Frontex mandate,” he explains, adding that he was being attacked for having done his job.
We asked the former director of Frontex and National Rally EU election candidate @FabriceLeggeri why he thinks he's being targeted after he was accused by left-wing NGOs of being complicit in crimes against humanity.
This was his response⬇️#CPACHungary2024 pic.twitter.com/AhtwdOrapf
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) April 25, 2024
“They want also to threaten,” he added. “These are intimidations… also against other law enforcement authorities.”
Regarding RN’s position in the polls, he said that the party could end up receiving just under a third of French votes.
“It can reach 32 per cent,” he said, adding that he was confident “that in other European countries the same can happen”.
The French candidate estimates that up to “one-third of the new MEPs” in the coming European Parliament could share RN’s “basic principles” regarding a wide range of issues.
“That our external borders should be controlled, that we don’t want to be overwhelmed by woke ideas and perhaps they are also concerned about the Green Deal,” he said.
“Everything that in fact is not democratic in the EU.”
The latest polls give an advantage to the Identity and Democracy (ID) group ahead of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), 86 to 75 seats respectively.
Le Pen’s party is attached to ID and the French leader is, in turn, one of the most important members of the group along with other prominent politicians such as the Dutch Geert Wilders or the Italian Matteo Salvini.
331,600 migrants illegally reached Europe in 2023, the most since the migrant crisis of 2015, says Frontex. https://t.co/jRPnRZKnuE
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) November 16, 2023
