Loiseau self-destructive sarcasm
President Emmanuel Macron’s candidate to lead a new centrist alliance in the European Parliament Nathalie Loiseau said on she was pulling out of the race, in a defiance to French government influence in the parliamenEt.
Nathalie Loiseau was quoted by Belgian newspapers disparaging allies in Renew Europe, formed by Macron’s party and the liberal ALDE, and adding she intends a sweeping overhaul of the group, the third biggest in the European Parliament.
Loiseau was quoted in Le Soir calling ALDE’s longtime leader Guy Verhofstadt “an old git with pent-up frustrations” and branding the conservative European People’s party candidate for Commission president an “ectoplasm”.
Loiseau described the comments, made during an off-record briefing to journalists in Brussels, as “pure fiction” but their leak damaged her credibility just as competition for the leadership intensified. And according to her own words she preferred to renounce her ambition to lead the group.
