The National Rally is at the heart of a new controversy over its links with Russia. Here is what the investigation by an American journalist reveals.
Like an air of déjà vu for the elected representatives of the National Rally. The far-right party is once again accused of being linked to Russian political power. But this time, the accusations come from the United States: in an investigation published by the Washington Postjournalist Catherine Belton claims that the RN is involved in Moscow’s strategy aimed at “undermining support forUkraine” and, more broadly, to destabilize Europe. Here is what the investigation says.
The journalist relies on “Kremlin documents obtained by a European security service” to reveal a vast strategy put in place by those close to Vladimir Putin with the aim of influencing the European political scene. According to her, Moscow relies on several European far-right parties, including the RN. As proof, she cites elements of language that would be developed by “the Kremlin strategists” and taken up by the elected representatives of the French party. Elements of language aimed at discrediting Ukraine and its president while hammering home the need to reestablish relations between France and the Russia.
THE Washington Post bases its argument on a French political figure in particular: former MEP Jean-Luc Schaffhauser, who sat with the National Rally. It is this man who allegedly negotiated the loan obtained by the RN in 2014 from a Czech-Russian bank. However, the investigation tells us, Jean-Luc Schaffhauser “rents a floor of his residence” in Strasbourg to number 2 of the Russian embassy in France, Ilya Subbotin. Proof of a close link with Moscow? The former MEP speaks of a simple “commercial arrangement” with the Russian diplomat. However, according to the Washington Post, Jean-Luc Schaffhauser would be involved in a broader strategy by Moscow aimed at destabilizing Europe: “All the governments of Western Europe will be changed”, he was quoted as saying by the American media.
“A cabal”?
The National Rally’s relations with Russia have long been the subject of multiple suspicions from the party’s adversaries. The bank loan taken out in 2014 by what was still the National Front from a Czech-Russian bank earned it repeated attacks. This point became particularly sensitive after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In September 2023, the party announced that it had repaid its entire loan, a way of definitively freeing itself from this burden. The camp of Marine Le Pen also revised his speech on Russia since the start of the war in Ukraine, condemning the Russian offensive. But his adversaries still do not forgive him for the reservations kept during the annexation of Crimea in 2014. Nor his obstinacy in opposing the economic sanctions taken against Russia.
These same adversaries were quick to get involved in this new controversy around the RN’s links with Russia. On X, the Macronist Renaissance party reacted to the investigation by Washington Post seeing it as proof that Marine Le Pen’s party was “the spokesperson for the Kremlin in France” and played “a leading role in relaying Putin’s propaganda”.
“All of this is a cabal,” protested RN spokesperson Laurent Jacobelli on South Radio. There “is no link between Russia and the National Rally”, insisted the MP, while repeating his party’s opposition to the sanctions taken against Russia since its offensive in Ukraine: “If tomorrow we have the majority in Brussels means a radical change, particularly in the sanctions imposed on certain countries because of their policies,” he warned.