Romanian nationalist candidate George Simion accused French President Emmanuel Macron of “dictatorial tendencies” on Thursday just days before the final round of Romania’s do-over presidential election.
“I love France and the French people, but I don’t like Emmanuel Macron’s dictatorial tendencies,” Simion said in an interview, conducted partly in French and partly in Romanian, with French TV channel CNews. “I don’t respect Emmanuel Macron’s intervention in our democracy,” he said.
“The French ambassador to Romania discussed [the elections] with the president of the Constitutional Court that annulled the [2024] elections in Romania,” Simion said, referring to the court’s December decision to annul the vote over Russian interference concerns and order a new vote.
During the campaign in the do-over election, “The French ambassador has gone … through all regions of the country to convince businessmen to support my opponent, the mayor of Bucharest,” Simion said.
Later in the interview, Simion compared France to Iran, saying it had become a country “where the ayatollahs decide who can run.” He claimed that France had lost its “relationship with God.”
“You don’t know who you are anymore,” Simion said of France. “It’s time to go back to tradition, and stop mutilating your children with sex reassignment surgeries. You hurt yourself. France — as a European, Christian country — will no longer exist,” he added.
Simion, 38, is the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) party and currently leads the race for the presidency. He has campaigned against military aid to Ukraine while supporting unification with Moldova.
His opponent in Sunday’s runoff is Nicușor Dan, 55, a centrist mathematician and independent mayor of Bucharest since 2020, who backs a pro-European, pro-Western path and tougher action against Russia.
In the first round, Simion won 41 percent of the vote to Dan’s 21 percent. For their Sunday runoff, recent polls have shown the gap narrowing significantly. POLITICO’s Poll of Polls puts Simion on 49 percent and Dan at 46 percent.
“We are basically winning,” Simion told POLITICO during a visit to Brussels on Thursday. “The only thing we need is fair and free elections. … I think it will be a landslide.”
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