EU elections: Steve Bannon says integration is ‘dead’, as he urges right-wing parties to form ‘supergroup’ in European Parliament
- Populists and Eurosceptic parties made gains in polls but remain split on key issues
- Former Trump adviser sees France’s Le Pen as ‘the key’ to uniting various groups thanks to her defeat of Emmanuel Macron’s LREM party
Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon hailed election results for the European Parliament on Monday and said the idea of further European Union integration was “dead” after gains by far-right nationalist parties.
Bannon, who has sought to build links with European populist parties, also urged them to get over their differences and form a “supergroup” in the parliament in the next month.
“The integration movement, which is what the EU has always been about, is dead,” Bannon said in an interview in his €5,400-a-night (US$6,000) suite at Le Bristol hotel in Paris.
“You will not see [EU Commission President] Juncker or any of that crowd pushing for more integration. That’s the historic thing about yesterday,” added the head of US President Donald Trump’s victorious 2016 election campaign.
Bannon revelled in the second-place finish of French President Emmanuel Macron’s Republic on the Move (LREM) party, which trailed the far-right National Rally of Marine Le Pen.