In the East, nothing new. The National Rally denounced this Tuesday, January 2, “a cabal” after the investigation of Washington Post accusing him of persistent ties with Moscow to weaken support for Ukraine. The party, however, confirms its desire to reverse the sanctions targeting Russia. Accused for years of serving the propaganda of the Russian regime, the RN is once again caught up in its alleged links with Moscow.
The controversy this time comes from across the Atlantic: in a survey published on Saturday December 30, the Washington Post accuses the party of Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella of playing a decisive role in the strategy orchestrated by Vladimir Putin’s entourage to destabilize Europe and “undermine support for Ukraine”. A vast enterprise of subversion combining social networks – oriented with the help of “troll farms” – and the cooperation of far-right parties, according to the American daily which relies in particular on “Kremlin documents obtained by a European security service. The journalist behind the article, Catherine Belton, is a specialist in Russian power. She notably published the book Putin’s Men: how the KGB took over Russia before attacking the Westpublished in 2022.
This strategy particularly targets France, identified in 2022 by Moscow as “vulnerable to political agitation”, although Russian power is also closely interested in Germany and Italy. Ultimately, “all governments in Western Europe will be changed”, assures Jean-Luc Schaffhauser, former MEP under the banner of the Front and then the National Rally, quoted in the newspaper. This key figure in Marine Le Pen’s party, who negotiated for her party the loan obtained in 2014 from a Czech-Russian bank, is implicated by the Washington Post, which reports its link with a representative of the Kremlin in France. According to the daily, Jean-Luc Schaffhauser “rents a floor of his residence” in Strasbourg to the number two at the Russian embassy in France, Ilya Subbotin, who sat on the Council of Europe until his exclusion in March 2022. A simple “commercial arrangement” through an agency, tempers the former MEP.
“Drive belt”
If the party finally recognized Russia as the “aggressor” in the conflict in Ukraine, it continues to describe as “useless” the embargoes imposed on Moscow, particularly on gas and oil. Elements of language developed by “Kremlin strategists” according to Washington Postand taken up by the party with the aim of discrediting the increasingly severe European sanctions.
Another weapon of choice for the Russian strategist: the armies of “trolls” present on social networks to massively criticize Western support for the Ukrainian government and President Volodymyr Zelensky, by imitating French users. A powerful tool, especially since “the visibility of pro-Russian accounts on social media is increasing in France,” notes the director of the French Institute of International Relations in the article. Furthermore, the rhetoric affirming that “France must assert itself as a great power and restore its relations with Russia” is gaining ground, points out the investigative journalist.
Interference that weighs on the approach of the European elections
In Emmanuel Macron’s camp, Renaissance sees it on the contrary as further proof that “the RN is indeed the spokesperson for the Kremlin in France”. He “plays a leading role in relaying Putin’s propaganda”, writes the party on , six months before taking out the loan from the Czech-Russian bank, which his party finally repaid last September. The three-time presidential candidate also fueled criticism by meeting Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin in 2017, a month before the election.
So many elements retained by the Macronist rapporteur of a parliamentary commission who qualified, in June, the RN as Russia’s “transmission belt”, even if the party has changed its discourse since the invasion of Ukraine at the beginning 2022 and recognizes that Moscow is the “aggressor”. “If Russia had given us our language, I don’t think we would say that,” objected its spokesperson Laurent Jacobelli, insisting on Sud Radio that “there is no link between Russia and Russia. National gathering. “All of this is a cabal,” he insisted, assuring that for the RN “the final objective is peace” and that “Ukraine regains its independence, its sovereignty and its borders” through “the diplomatic route”.
The expected breakthrough of the far right in several countries at the European elections in June could change the situation. The RN spokesperson also made no secret of it: “If tomorrow we have the majority in Brussels, that means a radical change, particularly in the sanctions imposed on certain countries because of their policies.”