Emmanuel Macron’s top Brexit aide exposed over far-right past backing violent racist thugs

ONE of Emmanuel Macron's closest aides has been unmasked as a former far-right activist.

Nathalie Loiseau, the French President's top adviser on Brexit, stood as a candidate for a group linked to racist violence.

She has since reinvented herself as an opponent of the hard right and claims to be an "enemy" of nationalists.

Ms Loiseau, 54, was Mr Macron's Europe Minister but quit to run for a seat in the European Parliament.

She has openly mocked Britain for voting to leave the EU - claiming she'd named her cat "Brexit" because it keeps asking to be let out of the house but never goes.

Now the outspoken figure is under fire after it emerged she was once linked to the violent Union Defence Group, known as the GUD.

The group carried out attacks on non-white, gay people and left-wingers.

French media outlet Mediapart revealed Ms Loiseau stood for the Union of Right-Wing Students, which was "born from the ashes of the GUD", during her university days in 1984.

One of her fellow candidates for the group was Christophe Bay, a close adviser to far-right leader Marine Le Pen.

Ms Loiseau initially claimed the document was fake but then admitted it was genuine, adding: "To be quite honest I had completely forgotten this episode."

She denied having far-right views and said: "If those who were on the list had an extremist agenda, I didn’t support them, I didn’t see it, and if it is the case, it is a mistake.

"If I had identified GUD members on this list, of course I would not have agreed to be on it."

Mr Macron's party promotes a centrist pro-EU ideology - its main rival is Ms Le Pen's National Rally.

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