Politico humor column imagines the EU after a Marine Le Pen presidency
Politico Europe's humor column "Declassified" imagines a fictional 2030 in which French President Marine Le Pen has dismantled the EU. It riffs on her recent Brussels speech pledging to turn the European Commission into a "secretariat" for member countries.
Politico Europe's weekly humor column "Declassified" ran a satirical piece on Oct. 16 picturing the European Union under a Marine Le Pen presidency of France. The column is fiction, and the events it describes are not real.
The real starting point
The satire is built on a speech Le Pen gave in Brussels on Wednesday. She pledged to turn the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, into a "secretariat" serving member countries, and to scrap some institutions altogether. The column also mentions a press conference she held in Moissac, France, on Oct. 12. It says Brussels is asking whether Le Pen would "do a Meloni", meaning soften her stance if elected, as Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni did.
The invented 2030 scenario
In the column, Le Pen is French president after beating footballer Kylian Mbappé in the 2027 election. The Commission's Berlaymont headquarters houses a Ministry of National Sovereignty, and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's 13th floor is a cat cafe. Other buildings in the EU quarter are razed or occupied by disgruntled former staff. The only remaining EU office is a corner table in a sandwich shop, Exki, manned around the clock by Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič. The European Parliament building is filled with zombie-like creatures, and nobody can tell the difference. Von der Leyen has become German chancellor.
The column ends with its usual caption competition for readers.
