French presidential hopeful Marine Le Pen said she broadly supports sanctions against Russia, except when it comes to oil and gas supplies, reports BBC News.
The far-right politician will battle Emmanuel Macron for the presidency in a run-off election after obtaining her highest result ever in the first round.
But she has faced criticism for allegedly being too close to Russia amid the war in Ukraine.
"I am perfectly in favour of all the other sanctions," Ms Le Pen said.
In the interview with France Inter radio, she said: "I do not want French people to suffer the consequences of sanctions" on oil and gas.
France, like many other European countries, imports much of its natural gas through pipelines from Russia, using it for residential and commercial energy.
But Ms Le Pen has been criticised by rivals over her past support for Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin.
She previously appeared to support Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula, and in 2017 called for international sanctions over the issue to be dropped.
In 2014, when Crimea was annexed by Russia, her political party received a loan from a Russian bank with alleged ties to the Kremlin.
Ms Le Pen justified her previous remarks by saying the annexation of Crimea was a different situation to the current invasion of Ukraine, and painted her support for Mr Putin as reflective of her wider ambition for a "multi-polar" world, Reuters reports.
Despite softening her stance on leaving the European Union and other nationalist issues in recent years, she is still widely opposed by most of France's political establishment.