Frexit

"Frexit" is a common name for a hypothetical French withdrawal from the European Union.

A poll by the Pew Research Center in June 2016, before the United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, 2016, found France to have a 61% unfavourable view of the EU, second only to Greece's 71%, with the United Kingdom on 48%. However, when asked about an actual departure from the EU, 45% of French wanted to stay at the heart of the bloc, while 33% expressed a desire to leave.

After a 2016 referendum in the UK resulted in 51.9% of votes being cast in favour of exiting the European Union, the Front National leader Marine Le Pen promised a French referendum on EU membership if she were to win the 2017 presidential election. Incumbent president François Hollande met with politicians including Le Pen in the aftermath of the vote, and rejected her proposal for a referendum. Fellow 2017 candidates Jean-Luc Mélenchon of the Left Party and Nicolas Dupont-Aignan of France Arise also advocate for a referendum.François Asselineau's Popular Republican Union instead advocate a unilateral withdrawal of the EU.

Hungarian-American billionaire investor George Soros, who opposed the UK's exit, predicts France and the Netherlands as the next countries to leave the EU.

The term was used before the Brexit referendum in 2016. Le Pen used the term of 'Frexit' in a Bloomberg Television interview she gave journalist Caroline Connan on June 23, 2015, exactly one year before the U.K. voted for Brexit. In this interview, she said 'Just Call Me Madame Frexit'.

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