Former French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire has rejected online reports claiming his proposal for a European federation would merge France with five neighbouring countries.
In statements to French news outlet TF1info, Le Maire described viral social media posts asserting a full national merger as fake news and an abusive interpretation of his policy manifesto.
The controversy emerged after Cerfia, an influential news aggregation account on social media platform X with over 1.2 million followers, published a commentary on a manifesto released by Le Maire on August 22. Cerfia presented his proposal as a plan to merge France with Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, and Poland under a single capital city and unified economic sovereignty.
However, the 60-page manifesto, in which the former minister outlines ideas to build what he calls a new France while maintaining ambiguity about his presidential election ambitions, describes a Federation of Nation-States focused on shared policies rather than the dissolution of national independence.
Le Maire clarified that while the term merger does appear in his text, it refers strictly to technological and administrative topics, specifically nuclear fusion and domestic proposals to merge French regional and departmental governments.
Structure of the proposed six-nation federation
In the manifesto preamble, Le Maire argued that Europe must break away from what he characterized as the false idea that a 27-member bloc managed by directives, regulations, and procedural delays can survive modern geopolitical challenges. He proposed that France should serve as the driving engine of a six-nation federation equipped with its own capital, constitution, rules, and concrete political projects.
Under the project, which occupies a little over a page in the document, the six member states would adopt a shared Constitution to establish decision-making rules while remaining full members of the 27-nation European Union. The federation would use its collective weight to exert political influence and advance its agenda, while keeping its structure open to any other EU member state seeking closer integration.
The proposal calls for member nations to pool their resources to function as a single state across a strictly restricted list of public policy domains. These designated areas include semiconductors and artificial intelligence, university degrees, financial markets, economic policy, and border control.
Le Maire stressed that member states would retain their national sovereignty and maintain full independent control over vital public institutions, including their courts, schools, and police forces. He emphasized that the common constitution would set operational guidelines without replacing national constitutions, adding a new institutional layer to European administration, or incurring additional public spending.
Economic necessity and global competition
To explain his initiative, Le Maire cited the urgent need for European scale in high-technology industries. Having joined the executive committee of Dutch semiconductor manufacturing equipment leader ASML in 2025, he pointed out that remaining competitive globally in microchip manufacturing requires a minimum investment of approximately 100 billion euros annually, a figure well beyond the reach of any single European nation.
Addressing why the plan targets Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, and Poland rather than other EU member states like Portugal or Sweden, Le Maire explained that these six countries alone represent nearly two-thirds of total European wealth. He expressed his absolute conviction that unless major European states unite to make faster and stronger decisions, Europe will fall behind global competitors in artificial intelligence and new technologies.
Drawing on his experience in government, Le Maire stated that an organization of 27 member states is incapable of taking decisive action. Although describing himself as pro-European, he argued that nations must liberate themselves from the weight of the European Commission, which he said frequently oversteps into member state competencies without effectively maintaining Europe's global standing.
He referenced the European aerospace manufacturer Airbus as a historic example of successful industrial cooperation, expressing regret that the current European Union structure is no longer capable of executing joint industrial projects of similar scale.
Political motives and presidential ambitions
As political debate intensifies in France ahead of the next presidential campaign, Le Maire attributed the inaccurate framing of his document to deliberate political opposition from the far right. He claimed that opponents were deliberately trying to weaken a serious policy proposal aimed at reinforcing European power.
Le Maire specifically highlighted the background of Cerfia, the account that circulated the merger claims, noting that it was acquired in the summer of 2025 by conservative billionaire Pierre-Édouard Stérin. He argued that the misleading presentation aligned with political motives seeking to undermine European strength.
Le Maire maintained that the proposed federation would operate without creating extra financial costs by utilizing administrative resources already in place at the national level. As discussions surrounding his 60-page document continue, the former minister has left open the question of whether he will enter the upcoming French presidential race.
