In an interview with Le Figaro, Marine Le Pen reveals some measures of her program for the presidential election. She says she wants to "nationalize the highways" and "privatize public broadcasting".

Marine Le Pen, declared candidate for the presidential election for several months, reveals a little more about her program for France. In a long interview with Le Figaro published on Wednesday, she mentions several economic measures.

According to her, this measure would also make it possible to bail out the state coffers by "1.5 billion euros per year". Amounts that would be used to implement "territorial redevelopment policies", adds the candidate, without giving more details.

Contracts until 2031 and 2036

In France, most of the motorway network is granted to private companies which are responsible for their management and operation. In return, these companies receive revenue from tolls. The state therefore still owns the highways.

The contracts concluded with these companies will end between 2031 and 2036. According to Jean-Baptiste Djebbari, Minister Delegate for Transport, interrupting the contracts before their term would cost 47 billion euros in compensation, he said in May last in the Senate. That is three times more than the price at which the motorways were sold, namely around 15 billion euros.

Marine Le Pen is not the only one to want to nationalize the motorways. It is also one of the proposals of Arnaud Montebourg, another declared presidential candidate of 2022.

"Do we need public broadcasting of this size?"

In addition, the president of the National Rally tells Le Figaro that she wants to "privatize public broadcasting". "It's immediately 2.8 billion royalties that we return to the French. We are a great democracy, do we still need a public audiovisual of this size?", Questions Marine Le Pen.

According to her, it is necessary to preserve "overseas audiovisual", as "the voice of France in the world". She also specifies that Arte will not be affected by the privatization and plans to transfer the INA to the Ministry of Culture, to integrate the national archives.

Again, the proposal is not new. In 2016, a note from the Foundation for Political Innovation (Fondapol, a think tank close to the Republicans), proposed to privatize France 2, and to remove other channels, including France 3 and France 4. But to our knowledge, for the time being, no other candidate for the 2022 presidential election is carrying the measure proposed by Marine Le Pen concerning public broadcasting.

Marine Le Pen

Presidential election 2022