Did the leader of France's National Rally party Marine Le Pen announce that she will save France from "the New World Order" and that "Macron will be arrested"? No, that's not true: The story came from a website known for producing false stories, and it was first published a year before the 2024 legislative election in France. The false story resurfaced in 2024 on social media and it did not include any sourcing for the claim. Neither Le Pen's resources nor any credible outlets reported that she ever said what was attributed to her in the viral claim.
The claim originated from an article (archived here) published by the People's Voice on July 3, 2023, under the title:
Marine Le Pen: 'I Will Save France From the New World Order - Macron Will Be Arrested'
It continued:
French presidential hopeful Marine Le Pen has issued a national address, vowing to save France from the 'New World Order' and hold President Macron criminally responsible for the anarchy currently taking place across the country.
This is what it looked like at the time of writing:
(Source: People's Voice screenshot taken on Thu Jun 27 14:04:21 2024 UTC)
When French President Emmanuel Macron called a new legislative election in France earlier in June 2024 (archived here), this People's Voice article, predating the voting by one year, started to be reshared again on social media; for example, this X post published on June 11, 2024 (archived here).
Le Pen, the leader of France's National Rally party, did not say that in 2024, in 2023 or before that.
The video of Le Pen embedded in the People's Voice article was a French-language clip (archived here) from her account on X that was posted in the summer of 2023, but it did not contain any proof confirming the claim: She commented on an unrelated event -- a series of riots after a 17-year-old teenager of Algerian-Moroccan descent was shot to death (archived here) by law enforcement that year.
A broad search for the keywords from the purported statement seen here (archived here) across Le Pen's official account on X (archived here) produced no matches.
As of this writing, her French-language campaign website accessed by Lead Stories via Chrome automated translation showed no announcement in question (archived here).
A more specific search for keywords seen here (archived here) across Euronews, which is a TV network predominantly focused on covering Europe, did not show any reporting backing up the claim.
A Google search (archived here) for the quote attributed to Le Pen in the title of the People's Voice article showed previous fact checks debunking the same claim and a post boosting it on 8kun (archived here), a message board known to have been one of the primary ways of communication among QAnon followers.
On June 27, 2024, Le Pen did discuss Macron but did not call for his arrest or promise to "save" the country from "the new world order": As reported by Le Monde (archived here) and Politico (archived here), she made a comment suggesting that it's not the president but the prime minister who holds more power in making decisions on national defense and military assistance to other countries.
The same claim was previously reviewed by Logically and Reuters.
About People's Voice
The People's Voice has a lengthy record of publishing false stories in the past. It describes itself as a resource "comprised of various web pages operated by Fact Checked Limited," but it has nothing to do with fact checking.
As of this writing, its website contained a liability disclaimer, saying:
FACT CHECKED LIMITED AND/OR ITS SUPPLIERS MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS ABOUT THE SUITABILITY, RELIABILITY, AVAILABILITY, TIMELINESS, AND ACCURACY OF THE INFORMATION, SOFTWARE, PRODUCTS, SERVICES AND RELATED GRAPHICS CONTAINED ON THE SITE FOR ANY PURPOSE. TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, ALL SUCH INFORMATION, SOFTWARE, PRODUCTS, SERVICES AND RELATED GRAPHICS ARE PROVIDED 'AS IS' WITHOUT WARRANTY OR CONDITION OF ANY KIND.
Other Lead Stories fact checks about Europe can be found here. International stories are here.
