French top minister slams left-wing coalition’s plan to ‘disobey’ EU rules – POLITICO

The French left-wing coalition’s plan to disregard EU rules is “irresponsible” and could lead to a Frexit, said France’s Europe Minister Clément Beaune on Friday.

“If we choose our rules A la carte … the destruction of the European Union is inevitable,” Beaune wrote in one Guest commentary published in Le Monde.

Earlier this week, far-left France Unbowed, the Greens, the Communists and the Socialist Party reached an agreement ahead of the first round of general elections on June 12 that will split constituencies between the four parties and allow their candidates to run unopposed by others Leftists all over France.

As part of the deal, the parties said they were “ready to flout EU rules, particularly budget rules,” to advance their green and social agenda and try to win French President Emmanuel Macron a majority in the National Assembly, the lower chamber of the French Parliament country to withdraw.

Beaune said the concept of European disobedience was “misleading and dangerous” and argued that “it perpetuates the infantilizing myth of a punitive Europe, a rebellious France chastised by a harsh teacher from Brussels or Berlin”.

Beaune added it was a “terrible admission of weakness” because it meant that “France would not be able to change Europe’s course if all our partners knew that the Union was never so shaped by our ideas was”.

He warned that disobedience to EU rules meant that a Frexit – France’s exit from the EU – would “occur” as a “logical consequence”.