Right-wing parties and cannabis

Opinions differ among the Republicans, the Christian Democratic Party and the Front National. We differentiate here :

• The Republicans
  • Jean-François Copé
  • François Fillon
  • Alain Juppé
  • Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet
  • Bruno Le Maire
  • Nicolas Sarkozy
  • Henri Guaino
• The Christian Democratic Party
• The National Front

The Republicans

Among the Les Républicains party, 7 candidates have now been declared. Opinions are overwhelmingly against.

Jean-François Copé - against legalization

Jean-François Copé, Député de Seine-et-Marne and Mayor of Meaux is against it. He recently declared, «If we legalize it, young people will smoke it like cigarettes [...] and the ban will go one step further». «We're well aware of the ravages of cannabis on the physical, psychological, psychic health of our young people,» insists the candidate in the Right and Center primary. «I'm well aware that, unfortunately, the law isn't respected in this area. But for me, the subject is the public health message for our young people. If we legalize cannabis, then we'll be giving young people the feeling that it has no effect on their health.».

Finally, he points out that the subject of cannabis should not be debated in public: “I don't mind having this kind of debate, but is it the most urgent one? I think we have enough heavy issues to deal with today in terms of security, the economy and social issues, without adding a new one for which the French are going to divide and tear each other apart.”

We need to tighten the State's grip on what it absolutely has to do, and free up energies for the rest,« he continues.

François Fillon - against

François Fillon, MP for Paris and former Prime Minister, is against it. In early 2016, he declared on RMC/BFMTV: “I'm against decriminalization or liberalization. It's strange, on the one hand there's an increasingly hard-line movement - and rightly so - against tobacco, and on the other hand they want to decriminalize cannabis”. Then: «There is an increase in consumption, particularly among young people, but (...) the argument that because consumption is on the rise we're going to liberalize everything doesn't satisfy me. There's no good solution to a scourge like this. The policy followed in France isn't necessarily the best, but the policy followed in other countries that have decriminalized cannabis (the Netherlands) isn't getting the results they want,« concluded François Fillon. »In the Netherlands, the issue is the subject of debate. We can't say that where it's decriminalized there are fewer consumers."

Alain Juppé - against

Alain Juppé, Mayor of Bordeaux and former Prime Minister, is against the idea. In his program, he proposes “a fine of a hundred euros, payable on the spot, with information for the family” for cannabis users. In a tweet dated April 12, 2016, he added: “Decriminalizing cannabis: a «stunt» to please certain young people by dividing the French. I am resolutely against this signal of loosening up.”

Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet - in favor of decriminalization

Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, MP for Essonne, recently came out of the woodwork on the subject, moving from a position against decriminalization in the past to one in favor of some form of decriminalization, but against legalization, which she believes would send the wrong message to young people. I'm more in favor of decriminalization,« she says, »so that we can continue to send a signal to young people, to continue to say that it's forbidden because we think it's problematic in terms of health. The former French Minister of Ecology asserted that decriminalization would provide «less hypocritical and in some ways more effective» means of combating consumption, because a fine would be imposed.

Bruno Le Maire - against

Bruno Le Maire, MP for the Eure department, is against the legalization or decriminalization of cannabis. In an interview on BFMTV, he said: «Cannabis is increasingly addictive, so we need to maintain the ban on cannabis consumption. We must »continue to fight effectively against this consumption«, he added.

Nicolas Sarkozy - against

Nicolas Sarkozy, Chairman of the Republicans and former President of the French Republic, is opposed to the idea. Throughout his career, he has taken positions against the idea, as in 2012, when he saw the hypothesis of decriminalization as “madness”. Yet he surprised everyone by declaring in August 2016 on BFMTV in response to the question “Plutôt Ricard ou pétard”: «I've never smoked a pétard in my life, it's not that I'm against it at all, I smoke a cigar from time to time», he explains. «And then Ricard... I've never drunk a drop of alcohol in my life, ever. Can you believe that? And yet I had fun, I tell you.» His entourage nevertheless clarified to BFMTV afterwards that the former head of state «is not against smoking in general», the question being about that rather than cannabis alone.

close to LR: Henry Guaino - against

The Yvelines deputy, having failed to run in the LR primary, has declared his intention to run independently. He's against it, telling L'AFP «It's really a moral disaster, this idea of legalizing cannabis, soft drugs as if they were soft, as if there was no connection between soft and hard drugs!» «But how are we going to raise our children, if we carry on like this?» he exclaimed. »I know, when I hear Mme Duflot, why I supported Nicolas Sarkozy and why I didn't want that left - that of Mme Duflot and a few others - to be in power,» he insisted.

Christian Democratic Party

Jean-Frédéric Poisson - against

Jean-Frédéric Poisson, President of the Christian Democratic Party and MP for Yvelines, is against the idea. On his blog in 2012, he wrote a long article on the subject, excerpted below: “The Greens are reopening the public debate on the «question» of decriminalizing cannabis. Everyone knew that they love plants, but there are limits to everything! The reality is that none of the arguments in favor of this thesis hold water. In fact, many of the countries that made the decision are now biting the bullet, and would love to turn back the clock. Switzerland and the Netherlands, for example. It's childish to think that drug dealers will stop trafficking just because cannabis will be on sale over the counter: tobacconists will tell you how damaging cigarette trafficking is to them, and it's never been so dense... It's naive to believe that the «bad guys» will become good guys just because their main source of income has disappeared: 1/ it won't have disappeared, 2/ they'll find other ways to maintain their illegal income, and 3/ nobody knows the consequences of all these decisions on the consumption of chemical drugs.” He drives the point home a little further in his article: “Today's cannabis is much, much more dangerous to brain activity, and leads to addiction much more quickly.” His conclusion: “rather than relaxing the law, (we need to) considerably toughen penalties against the perpetrators of trafficking and the promoters of consumption. We therefore need to reform the penal code in this area, but in exactly the opposite way to what the Greens are proposing.”

Front National

Marine Le Pen - against

The President of the Front National, Member of the European Parliament and regional councillor for the Hauts-de-France (formerly Nord-Pas-de-Calais) region, is against the idea. She raised the subject in 2011 in an interview on Europe 1, declaring: “We can't limit drug trafficking because we don't have the means to do so, it's as simple as that. We're losing the war on drugs, but for a good and simple reason: we're not fighting it. It's [decriminalization] a profoundly dangerous idea, and those who say “oh, after all, pot...” are wrong, because these products are much more dangerous in their composition today than they were in the days when Monsieur Vaillant was perhaps a bit of a hippy and dabbled in joints”.

On the question of decriminalization, she adds: “We talk regularly with criminologists, and where it has been done, it has been dramatic. The results of decriminalizing drugs have been an explosion in drug use, with considerable public health problems, with psychiatric problems in the population that have worsened considerably, and with a crime rate that is to some extent a consequence of the lack of self-control that comes with taking drugs. Obviously, some people will be reasonable. But for every reasonable person, there will be another who is not. This false good idea has been around for 60 years now and, fortunately for the time being, governments have had the wisdom not to give it a conclusion”.

Marine Le Pen's opinion currently applies to the entire Front National.