Marine Le Pen optimistic on forming group in EP

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Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front (NF) who made a political tsunami in France during the European Parliament (EP) election on Sunday, expressed confidence Wednesday on the formation of a group in the EP who will take office on July 1.

Addressing a press conference here in the EP, she announced an alliance between the NF and the Northern League (Italy), the Freedom Party (Netherlands), the Freedom Party of Austria and the Vlaams Belang (Belgium).

This xenophobic alliance now has 38 seats, 24 for NF which is the most important French political party in the 8th EP for the next five years, so beyond the required number of members to be able to form a parliamentary group (25), but has to fulfill another criterion - those elected are from at least seven countries.

For Le Pen, the "technocrat totalitarian" European Union (EU) "is out of date."

Camping on her populist position, including anti-immigration, protectionism, she launched a charm campaign trying to please nationalist Eurosceptics by emphasizing the sovereignty of each European state.

Le Pen did not veil indignation about the possibility of an agreement between the European People's Party (EPP) and the Party of European Socialists (PES), the two largest groups in the EP and pro-European all two, to block the advance of Eurosceptics, who collected more than 140 seats out of the total 751 in the EP during the 2014 election.

The alliance headed by Le Pen has to attract, in the next three weeks, other allies from two more countries to form a parliamentary group.

The formation of a group in the EP means indeed have financial benefits and access to the presidency of some 20 committees and two subcommittees of the Parliament. Last year, seven groups of the outgoing EP shared an allocation of 57 million euros (78 million U.S. dollars). Endi

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