Reacting to the announcement of the death of prominent Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny, France’s president Emmanuel Macron accused Russia of sentencing “free spirits” to death.
Navalny, 47, who was handed several prison sentences, extended in 2022 total to 19 years for “extremism”, died at the IK-3 Arctic "Polar Wolf" penal colony following a walk, according to an announcement on Friday by the regional prison administration.
“In today’s Russia, free spirits are sent to the gulag and they are condemned to death there,” said Macron in a post on X (the former Twitter) on Friday. “Anger and indignation,” he added. “I salute the memory of Alexei Navalny, his commitment, his courage. Thoughts for his family, those close to him and for the Russian people.”
French foreign affairs minister Stéphane Séjourné, also writing on X, said Navalny, 47, “paid with his life for his resistance against a system of oppression”.
“His death in a penal colony reminds us of the reality of the regime of Vladimir Putin,” added Séjourné.
Junior minister for European affairs, Jean-Noël Barrot, said: “In a democracy, a political opponent does not die in prison.”
Meanwhile the president – or speaker – of the French parliament’s lower house, Yaël Braun-Pivet, a member of Macron’s Renaissance party, said the “unbearable” news of Navalny’s death “should make us all angry”.
“Alexei Navalny today becomes the symbol of the resistance to the oppression that Vladimir Putin exercises over his people.”