The far-right French Unification party, the candidate for the 2022 French presidential election, Marine Le Pen.
Virtue Getty Images News Getty Images
The leader of the French nationalist and far-right political party, Marine Le Pen, saw her momentum linger on the eve of Sunday’s vote, as her previous ties with Russia have re-emerged in recent days.
Le Pen received 23.1% of the vote in the first round of the French election on April 10 – came in second and won a place in the final runoff this Sunday against incumbent President Emmanuel Macron, who received 27.8% of the vote.
The Macron-Le Pen meeting is a repeat of the 2017 election, but this time around the early vote, she suggests she has a better chance of winning it.
But in a key televised debate Wednesday against Macron, Le Pen was accused of being “dependent” on Russia, and political commentators said she had failed to deal a serious blow to the French president. A poll Thursday showed Macron will win the second round with 55% of the vote and Le Pen with 45%.
During her election campaign, Le Pen’s team reportedly had to throw out thousands of election leaflets, including a photo of her shaking hands with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Her team said the reason for the scrapping was a typo, not a photo.
Macron told Le Pen during a two-hour debate on Wednesday: “When you talk to Russia, you talk to your banker,” according to the translation. In 2014, Le Pen’s party (the National Front, now rebranded as the National Rally) reportedly requested loans from Russian banks, including the First Czech Bank of Russia, a creditor allegedly linked to the Kremlin. . Le Pen dismissed the allegations Wednesday, saying “I am a completely free woman.”
She added that her team pays off the loans every month and that she only borrowed from Russian banks because no French lender would give money to her party.
Earlier this week, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny – in prison after returning to Russia last year after being treated for a poisoning attack – called on French voters to support Macron, arguing that Le Pen was too closely linked to Russia. Macron’s finance minister, Bruno Le Mer, also warned against Le Pen’s policies on Thursday, telling CNBC’s Charlotte Reed that France would withdraw from Europe if it came out first on Sunday.
Mujtaba Rahman, managing director of consulting firm Eurasia Group, told CNBC on Friday that Le Pen had managed to evade control on the eve of the first round, “mainly because the campaign was so short and Zemmour [a far-right politician who also ran in the first round] made her look more moderate “
However, he said the level of media control entering the second round had “increased”, including because of its ties to Russia.
Le Pen met face to face with Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2017 ahead of this year’s presidential vote in France. She has also previously supported some of Russia’s foreign policies, including the decision to invade Ukrainian Crimea in 2014, arguing that it is not illegal because Crimeans have chosen to join Russia in a referendum. Western countries and the Ukrainian government believe the 2014 vote was illegal.
As early as 2017, she also told the BBC that the policies she advocated were also presented by former US President Donald Trump and Putin.
Earlier this year, as Russia developed a military presence near the border with Ukraine, Le Pen said he saw Moscow as an ally of France and did not believe Russia wanted to invade Ukraine.
Following the Kremlin invasion, Le Pen welcomed France’s support for Ukrainian refugees. But she also criticized some of the sanctions imposed on Moscow, arguing that the measures harmed French businesses and individuals.
Wednesday’s debate “will go down in history as a successful attempt to call into question the democratic legitimacy of Le Pen’s party,” said Alberto Alemanno, a professor of European law at HEC Paris Business School, following Macron’s attack on Le Pen’s financial ties. Pen with Putin’s Russia.
“This is set up to capture the public imagination by inextricably linking the vote for Marin Le Pen with Putin’s Russia. This seems to be one of the most powerful defenses of Macron’s presidency during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, “he added.
Add Comment