Eight members of the presidential majority announced this Saturday that they have written to the speaker of the National Assembly to call for the establishment of a parliamentary commission of inquiry into alleged Russian funding of foreign political parties.
In their letter to Yaël Braun-Pivet, the elected representatives of the Renaissance groups, President Emmanuel Macron’s party, and Horizons, the movement of former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, cite information recently declassified by American intelligence agencies, which say that Russia has hundreds since 2014 Paid millions of euros to foreign political parties “to increase its influence and influence the polls”.
They are also based on statements made by a former French ambassador to Moscow, Jean-Maurice Ripert, who stated on television that “nobody did not know that a certain number of French politicians came from a certain side and did not leave empty-handed”. “The reconciliation between these two pieces of information can only cause the greatest problems for those who, like us, are attached to our democracy,” say the elected officials in their letter sent to the press by Mr François Cormier-Bouligeon’s deputy. Member of the National Defense Committee of the Assembly.
MEPs also recall the existence of loans taken out by the National Front (now National Rallye) from Russian banks “to finance election campaigns, the amounts of which are still due”, or even appointments to the board of companies of the former French leaders such as former Prime Minister François Fillon, Republican candidate (right) for the 2017 presidential election. “These facts clearly reinforce the sense of Russia’s desire to influence public debate in France,” they believe. All elements justify the establishment of a commission of inquiry “to find out whether French political parties – and which ones – have benefited from Russian funding,” write the MPs to the President of the National Assembly, who is herself a member of the Renaissance Group.