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MARINE LE PEN

French far-right party says Russian loan repaid

France's far-right Rassemblement National party, headed by Marine Le Pen, has repaid a loan originally from a Czech-Russian bank that political opponents said demonstrated its ties to the Kremlin.

Published: 21 September 2023 11:30 CEST

French far-right party says Russian loan repaid

France's far-right party Rassemblement National (RN) leader Marine Le Pen. Photo by Miguel MEDINA / AFP

The remaining money – €6.1 million of the original €9.4 million – was paid back “in advance” to the Russian firm Aviazapchast, which had bought the debt, the party said in a statement Tuesday.

Rassemblement National (RN) officials hope getting out from under the debt can end attacks like Presidential Emmanuel Macron’s last year, when he accused their candidate Marine Le Pen of being “dependent on the Russian regime” and President Vladimir Putin during the 2022 election debate.

Le Pen is “talking to her banker when she talks to Russia,” Macron said at the time.

Ahead of the 2022 campaign, the party had to hastily shred election leaflets that included a photo of Le Pen with Putin, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The loan “is used as an argument by my opponents, in my opinion unfairly, and I don’t plan on giving my opponents any arguments,” RN chief Jordan Bardella told daily Le Monde.

Winning dozens of seats in parliamentary elections following Macron’s re-election has given the RN access to millions more in public funding, allowing it to repay the Russian debt before the 2028 deadline.

Its announcement of the repayment came the day after Le Pen said she was the party’s “natural candidate” to run for president again in 2027, when Macron will have reached his two-term limit.

The loan, originally from the First Czech-Russian Bank (FCBR), kept the party afloat from 2014, when it claimed French lenders were refusing to extend credit.

Later bought by a Russian car rental firm after FCBR went bust, the debt ended up with Aviazapchast an aircraft components firm owned by former Russian soldiers.

The RN last year opened a parliamentary inquiry into foreign interference in French politics, in a bid to clear itself of allegations it was acting in Russia’s interest.

But the committee’s final report found that the RN was a “relay” for Russia in French politics, highlighting its “alignment” with Kremlin messaging when Moscow claimed to have annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine in 2014.

The party has also opposed French aid for Ukraine since Russia’s invasion last year, and did not vote when the French parliament approved bids by Finland and Sweden to join NATO.

Marine Le Pen “has given no sign of a real break with the Kremlin”, public broadcaster FranceInfo commented in an editorial.

“If tomorrow she continues to take pro-Russian positions, (she) will at least prove that it’s not out of self-interest, but a real political choice.”

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Anonymous - 21 September 2023 at 17:09 CEST

Please stop being so political.

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Azerbaijan vehemently rejects the accusation it bears responsibility for the riots that have led to the deaths of five people and rattled the Paris government.

But it is just the latest in a litany of tensions between Paris and Baku and not the first time France has accused Azerbaijan of being behind an alleged disinformation campaign.

The riots in New Caledonia, a French territory lying between Australia and Fiji, were sparked by moves to agree a new voting law that supporters of independence from France say discriminates against the indigenous Kanak population.

Paris points to the sudden emergence of Azerbaijani flags alongside Kanak symbols in the protests, while a group linked to the Baku authorities is openly backing separatists while condemning Paris.

“This isn’t a fantasy. It’s a reality,” interior minister Gérald Darmanin told television channel France 2 when asked if Azerbaijan, China and Russia were interfering in New Caledonia.

“I regret that some of the Caledonian pro-independence leaders have made a deal with Azerbaijan. It’s indisputable,” he alleged.

But he added: “Even if there are attempts at interference… France is sovereign on its own territory, and so much the better”.

“We completely reject the baseless accusations,” Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry spokesman Ayhan Hajizadeh said.

“We refute any connection between the leaders of the struggle for freedom in Caledonia and Azerbaijan.”

In images widely shared on social media, a reportage broadcast Wednesday on the French channel TF1 showed some pro-independence supporters wearing T-shirts adorned with the Azerbaijani flag.

Tensions between Paris and Baku have grown in the wake of the 2020 war and 2023 lightning offensive that Azerbaijan waged to regain control of its breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region from ethnic Armenian separatists.

France is a traditional ally of Christian Armenia, Azerbaijan’s neighbour and historic rival, and is also home to a large Armenian diaspora.

Darmanin said Azerbaijan – led since 2003 by President Ilham Aliyev, who succeeded his father Heydar – was a “dictatorship”.

On Wednesday, the Paris government also banned social network TikTok from operating in New Caledonia.

Tiktok, whose parent company is Chinese, has been widely used by protesters. Critics fear it is being employed to spread disinformation coming from foreign countries.

Azerbaijan invited separatists from the French territories of Martinique, French Guiana, New Caledonia and French Polynesia to Baku for a conference in July 2023.

The meeting saw the creation of the “Baku Initiative Group”, whose stated aim is to support “French liberation and anti-colonialist movements”.

The group published a statement this week condemning the French parliament’s proposed change to New Caledonia’s constitution, which would allow outsiders who moved to the territory at least 10 years ago the right to vote in its elections.

Pro-independence forces say that would dilute the vote of Kanaks, who make up about 40 percent of the population.

“We stand in solidarity with our Kanak friends and support their fair struggle,” the Baku Initiative Group said.

Raphael Glucksmann, the lawmaker heading the list for the French Socialists in June’s European Parliament elections, told Public Senat television that Azerbaijan had made “attempts to interfere… for months”.

He said the underlying problem behind the unrest was a domestic dispute over election reform, not agitation fomented by “foreign actors”.

But he accused Azerbaijan of “seizing on internal problems.”

A French government source, who asked not to be named, said pro-Azerbaijani social media accounts had on Wednesday posted an edited montage purporting to show two white police officers with rifles aimed at dead Kanaks.

“It’s a pretty massive campaign, with around 4,000 posts generated by (these) accounts,” the source told AFP.

“They are reusing techniques already used during a previous smear campaign called Olympia.”

In November, France had already accused actors linked to Azerbaijan of carrying out a disinformation campaign aimed at damaging its reputation over its ability to host the Olympic Games in Paris. Baku also rejected these accusations.