The recent decision by Fabrice Leggeri, the former head of the EU border agency, Frontex, to announce he would be a candidate for the party of Marine le Pen in the upcoming EU elections, must surely have caused many within that great Republic to almost choke on their merlot.
After all, it wasn’t to be expected that he would embrace a party with a track record of virulent political attacks on the very agency he once headed, including during the period when he was its executive director.
This has led more than one opposition party to describe Leggeri’s candidacy as ‘absurd.’
However, as Irish journalist Thomas O’Reilly, writing for The European Conservative, rightly noted, much of the reaction can probably be put down to the fact that he is almost certain to take a seat in the next European Parliament. In fact, as O’Reilly also observes, polls suggest le Pen’s nationalist party is on course to take first place with 30% of the national vote in June’s election.
In many ways Leggeri’s final break with ‘respectable’ politics should not have come as anything like a shock. As O’Reilly and others have long pointed out, monsieur Leggeri has been quite vocal about how far Frontex has drifted from its original mission, i.e., to manage and reduce, not to facilitate and welcome mass immigration to European members states. He has repeatedly clashed with NGOs and what O’Reilly describes as “the notoriously left-wing EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson” during his time at Frontex.
The President of Le Pen’s party, Jordan Bardella, has since repeated his view that Frontex has acted like ‘hostess for migrants’ rather than a security guard and he has praised Leggeri for his commitment to “reorient Frontex towards a mission of protecting our borders and our civilization.”
Il faut réorienter Frontex vers une mission de protection de nos frontières et de notre civilisation, comme souhaitait le faire @FabriceLeggeri.
Dans ces #Européennes2024, je serai le candidat de la France qui ne veut plus "prendre sa part" en matière d'immigration. pic.twitter.com/dq1o8j0Peq
— Jordan Bardella (@J_Bardella) February 19, 2024
Leggeri himself is clearly not remotely phased by the onslaught of criticism he has received, even going so far as to push back by saying “the European Commission has turned Frontex into a super-NGO for migrants”.
For Leggeri, the task now is to reveal the Wizard behind the Frontex curtain.
He considers “the attacks suffered, and the political pressures he endures to demonstrate the need to oppose today’s Europe. The European Commission is encouraging a migration flood, but we must act to protect our sovereignty and our borders.”
Les attaques subies et les pressions politiques démontrent la nécessité de s'opposer à l'Europe actuelle. La Commission européenne encourage une submersion migratoire, mais nous devons agir pour protéger notre souveraineté et nos frontières.
8/10#VivementLe9Juin— Fabrice Leggeri (@FabriceLeggeri) February 17, 2024
It hasn’t all gone Leggeri’s way, however. There are many who still point to the fact that Leggeri had to relinquish his role at Frontex in 2022 following a controversial and highly disputed investigation by EU anti-fraud agency OLAF.
OLAF claimed that Frontex was “illegally forcing migrants back across a border, along EU shores in the Aegean Sea at Greece’s frontier with Turkey.”
For Leggeri, the whole thing appears to have been a politically motivated attempt to undermine his efforts to ensure Frontex was not just a paper tiger.
In any event, the candidacy of Fabrice Leggeri has added a rather welcome bit of spice to the otherwise stultifying and cliché ridden boredom we normally associate with EU parliament elections.