{"id":105796,"date":"2025-05-16T08:29:08","date_gmt":"2025-05-16T08:29:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/105796\/"},"modified":"2025-05-16T08:29:08","modified_gmt":"2025-05-16T08:29:08","slug":"romanian-presidential-front-runner-accuses-macron-of-dictatorial-tendencies-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/105796\/","title":{"rendered":"Romanian presidential front-runner accuses Macron of \u2018dictatorial tendencies\u2019 \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

During the campaign in the do-over election<\/a>, \u201cThe French ambassador has gone \u2026 through all regions of the country to convince businessmen to support my opponent, the mayor of Bucharest,\u201d Simion said.<\/p>\n

Later in the interview<\/a>, Simion compared France to Iran, saying it had become a country \u201cwhere the ayatollahs decide who can run.\u201d He claimed that France had lost its \u201crelationship with God.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t know who you are anymore,\u201d Simion said of France. \u201cIt\u2019s time to go back to tradition, and stop mutilating your children with sex reassignment surgeries. You hurt yourself. France \u2014 as a European, Christian country \u2014 will no longer exist,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Simion, 38, is the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) party and currently leads<\/a> the race for the presidency. He has campaigned against<\/a> military aid to Ukraine while supporting unification with Moldova.<\/p>\n

His opponent in Sunday\u2019s runoff is Nicu\u0219or Dan, 55, a centrist mathematician and independent mayor of Bucharest since 2020, who backs a pro-European, pro-Western path<\/a> and tougher action against Russia.<\/p>\n

In the first round<\/a>, Simion won 41 percent of the vote to Dan\u2019s 21 percent. For their Sunday runoff, recent polls have shown the gap narrowing significantly. POLITICO\u2019s Poll of Polls<\/a> puts Simion on 49 percent and Dan at 46 percent.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are basically winning,\u201d Simion told POLITICO<\/a> during a visit to Brussels on Thursday. \u201cThe only thing we need is fair and free elections. \u2026 I think it will be a landslide.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"During the campaign in the do-over election, \u201cThe French ambassador has gone \u2026 through all regions of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":105797,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[30,33,28284,34,2000,299,2816,26386,1105,36,38,33113,774,25809,2597,13491,36829,2822,1438,35564,48510,332,657],"class_list":{"0":"post-105796","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-courts","9":"tag-elections","10":"tag-elections-in-europe","11":"tag-emmanuel-macron","12":"tag-eu","13":"tag-europe","14":"tag-european-politics","15":"tag-extremism","16":"tag-far-right","17":"tag-france","18":"tag-french-politics","19":"tag-george-simion","20":"tag-iran","21":"tag-mayors","22":"tag-military","23":"tag-moldova","24":"tag-nicusor-dan","25":"tag-regions-cohesion","26":"tag-romania","27":"tag-romanian-politics","28":"tag-romanian-presidential-election-2025","29":"tag-russia","30":"tag-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114516575078089771","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105796\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}