by Irene Soave
Why does Macron accuse Le Pen of dependence on Moscow? The Rassemblement National presidential candidate has borrowed 11 million from a Russian bank since 2014 for the 2017 election campaign; the latest campaign was financed by a Hungarian bank with 10.6 million
Since she had to withdraw a million ballot papers depicting her in a full handshake with Putin, Marine Le Pen has come to terms with accusations of dependence on Moscow.
His opponent in the race for the Elysée Emmanuel Macron said the same thing to him in the election debate on Wednesday evening: If you are referring to Russia, Madame Le Pen, you are not dealing with a foreign state, but with its bank. The lunge hit. But what are you referring to?
Marine Le Pen and Vladimir Putin: a long-standing friendship
Relations between Marine Le Pen and Vladimir Putin have historically been friendly. In the headquarters of the leader of the Rassemblement National, the painting in the style of socialist realism is famous, which shows them together with the Russian President and Donald Trump. In 2017, in his second campaign for the Elysée, Le Pen summed up his vision of foreign policy with the positions of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. And today, while trying to distance himself from the invasion, Le Pen reiterated several times that one of the priorities when the war is over is to immediately restore a relationship of trust between NATO and Russia from which — according to the election manifesto of Le Pen – European security cannot be ignored.
The 2014 loan: 11 million
In 2014, before Russia occupied Crimea, Marine Le Pen launched (for the second time) the Race to the Elysée. In the 2017 presidential election, she would have been the presidential candidate of the then Front National (later Rassemblement 2018). However, given the party’s past and its far-right positions, Le Pen was unable to find financiers from any French bank. By the end of the year, the Front National had borrowed 11 million euros from Russian banks, including 9 million from Pcrb, the Pervyy Cheshsko-Rossiyskiy bank closely linked to the Kremlin.
The loan broker, an MEP who called himself Mr Mission Impossible, Jean-Luc Schaffhauser, later told the BBC that Russian banks were not the first choice: it had contacts with an Emirati fund and then a potential one Iranians given donors. But they had failed. Negotiations with Russian banks were taking place just during the annexation of Crimea; from the same time and then from 2015 there are also two visits by Marine Le Pen to the Kremlin, which her father Jean-Marie announced in a dirty TV interview with her daughter and was then described by her employees as unofficial, friendly. Investigations by a Russian hacker collective, the Shaltai Boltai Collective, had leaked messages between Kremlin officials trying to recruit Le Pen as an independent observer for the referendum that later led to annexation; Le Pen didn’t go, but the only French party that refused to condemn the annexation of Crimea at the time was the Front National.
The last credit: 10.6 million
The loan to the now defunct and defunct Czech-Russian Bank was bought first by a Russian car rental company, Conti, then by a foreign trade company founded by former Russian soldiers, Aviazaptchast. them that Rassemblement National would continue to pay the installments to repay it. Meanwhile, the election campaign for these presidential elections is approaching, the outcome of which will be decided on Sunday, April 24th. And it cost more money. Since 2017, parties from European countries are no longer allowed to borrow funds from non-EU banks. The French media have repeatedly documented the various refusals by French banks and institutions to fund Marine Le Pen’s election campaign, which has now received 10.6 million from the Hungarian bank Mbk, owned by the Orbn sovereign government.
April 21, 2022 (change April 21, 2022 | 14:57)
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