by Matthew Boyle, Breitbart:

Marine Le Pen, the leader of the National Rally party in France, in a Breitbart News exclusive interview on Monday called on French president Emmanuel Macron to resign the presidency, but said he is not honest or bold enough to recognize his worldview has been defeated.

In the United Kingdom, Le Pen noted, David Cameron stepped down as Prime Minister when the British people voted to leave the European Union back in 2016. And in 2019, Le Pen noted, Prime Minister Theresa May announced her plans to resign after the Brexit Party defeated her party and all others in the U.K.’s European Parliament elections.

Le Pen told Breitbart News that Macron should “definitely” follow Cameron’s and May’s leads and resign from the French presidency. “But Macron has neither the honesty to do it, nor the panache to do it,” Le Pen said.

Even if Macron hangs onto the presidency and refuses to resign despite the stinging defeat in this weekend’s elections, Le Pen told Breitbart News that Macron must dissolve Parliament “immediately” and hold new elections as soon as possible.

“They should happen immediately because of yesterday’s results, but mostly because of Macron’s posture during the election where he was not the warrantor of the constitution but he became an active player in one of the parties,” Le Pen said in a more-than-20-minute phone interview on Monday in the wake of her party’s win over Macron’s in the European Union elections. “Once he engaged, it became his personal responsibility. He should take into consideration the results and call for elections.”

Le Pen’s National Rally, rebranded from the old National Front party her father founded that she took over, surged into first place in the European Union elections in France this weekend. Le Pen’s party won more than 24 percent of the vote compared with Macron’s Republic on the Move, which finished under 22 percent.

Speaking through a translator via phone for the exclusive interview on Monday, Le Pen explained the victory and why she believes her party won, while Macron’s was defeated.

“There are two main reasons: One is a European reason, and the other is on a national basis. Macron, in the early stages of the campaign, presented himself as the leader of the European Union that the French people do not want anymore,” Le Pen said. “The European Union despises the people. The European Union protects unfair competition specifically with products coming from China. And more than anything, the European Union is fully open to immigration to the European Union that will be submerged.”

“The second reason is a national reason. He established some policies, specifically on a fiscal level, that are particularly unjust and unfair to the popular classes, to the common person. For the past two years, he has displayed extreme arrogance and spite for the common people and the French people in general. What I and the list have been doing is explaining to the French people that the former divide between right and left wing does not exist anymore. And for the second time in a row, which means including the presidential election two years ago, the new divide is between the globalists and the nationalists. Twice in a row, this narrative that I have been explaining has become true and has been put in place by the vote of the French people.”

Yellow Vest protesters have been blaming Macron for losing the election. Le Pen said that while the Yellow Vest impact on the election is “difficult to assess,” the bigger point is that people feel disenfranchised and not represented properly in their government.

“It is difficult to assess but an essential part of our dysfunctional democracy in France which is the lack of representativity of the national assembly in France,” Le Pen said. “We are the first party in France with 24 percent yesterday in the European elections, and yet our party has six members in Parliament out of 577. When democracy is so badly treated, it only can create tensions that are most likely irreversible.”

Le Pen has been campaigning on the narrative that the battle is no longer between the traditional left and right, but instead between the top and bottom—a globalists versus nationalists fight—and the contrast offers voters in elections around the world a clear choice.

“Globalism is a post-national spirit,” Le Pen said when asked to explain the differences between globalism and nationalism. “It carries a notion that borders must disappear, including the protection that such borders usually brings to a nation. It carries the concept that overwhelming markets decide about everything. This concept about globalism is pushed by technocrats that are never elected and they are the typical type of person who runs things in Brussels in the European Union. The people that believe in nations—the nationalists—it’s the exact opposite. They believe that nations are the most efficient way to protect national security, prosperity, and identity to make sure that people will prosper in the nations.”

Le Pen, when asked by Breitbart News about how some critics of nationalism point to the dark history of nationalism in Europe to criticize it, shot down such criticisms as efforts to defame those who believe in the ideology.

“The objective of the globalists is to discredit anyone who defends a nation, and to shame them or to defame them,” Le Pen said. “It’s specifically because a nation is the ground where democracy applies, where the people can decide. They do know that the people in fact do not agree with globalism.”

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