Britain’s release from the EU will be made as painful as possible by Brussels bosses sending a message to other European nations flirting with leaving.
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| Marine Le Pen said Britain’s release from the EU will be made as painful as possible |
The claim was made by French nationalist Marine Le Pen after a post-Brexit meeting today with French President Francois Hollande.
Calls for France to leave the European Union have increased in the wake of Brexit and Hollande met the National Front leader in an attempt to find a way forward.
The historic British vote to leave has deepened fears among mainstream politicians across Europe about the rise of anti-establishment parties, particularly in France, where Ms Le Pen's far-right, eurosceptic National Front is increasingly popular.
Ms Le Pen repeated her calls for France to hold its own EU referendum after announcing her support for Brexit.
But the politician said her demands were rejected and she left the talks “with the feeling of having come for nothing”.
Ms Le Pen said Hollande "will take no notice of all the signals that have been sent for years by people in Europe and France, not even after the British people's decision to leave the EU".
She also fuelled speculation Brussels will make Britain's exit as difficult as possible to set an example to others.
Ms Le Pen said: “It is clear that some people want the divorce to be as painful as possible so that others don’t get the idea of going down the same road as the British."
Ms Le Pen, who opinion polls suggest will top the first round of next year's presidential election but lose the run-off, says France should also ditch the euro and leave the Schengen border-free area.
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| President Francois Hollande has held post-Brexit talks |
The National Front leader said Thursday’s historic EU referendum was a clear indication the 28-nation bloc was “decaying”, as she vowed to give her own countrymen the choice should she be elected to the Elysee Palace next year.
Her comments come as France's economy minister said the EU needs a new road map that should be devised in consultation with voters and then put to a referendum, as Paris sought for ways to handle the fallout at home from the Brexit vote.
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| Hollande rejected Le Pen's calls for a French EU referendum |
Emmanuel Macron said: "We've never had the courage to organise a true European referendum in its real sense. This next project must give it that strength.
"We would first build this new project with European peoples and then submit this new road map, this new project, to a referendum," he said, adding that the idea was to have one single referendum across the bloc."
Macron's talk of an EU-wide referendum goes beyond comments made by Hollande and Prime Minister Manuel Valls, who both said the EU needed to reinvent itself after the Brexit vote but made no reference to a popular vote.
France is one of the countries pressing Britain to kickstart the process of leaving the blocquickly so Brussels can concentrate shaping the future of Europe.
