Jean-Luc Schaffhauser, the Member of the European Parliament who negotiated a Russian loan for France's far-right Rassemblement National, runs a foundation which received hundreds of thousands of euros in return for speeches in the Parliament that were favourable to Moscow, according to emails seen by Mediapart. When questioned about this Marine Le Pen, who was president of the party at the time of the Russian loan, did not respond. Marine Turchi reports.
Pro-Kremlin online networks led a disinformation campaign in support of the chairman of the French far-right Rassemblement National (RN) party during the recent European Parliament elections. After the far-right garnered almost 32% of votes cast in France, President Emmanuel Macron called snap legislative elections, plunging the country into political chaos. But that recent disinformation campaign was just the latest that has targeted France, and there are fears that a major operation may now try to influence the outcome of the imminent legislative poll. Justine Brabant and Matthieu Suc report.
In 2019 a report from the French domestic intelligence agency the DGSI listed the “influential intermediaries” that were used by Russia in France during the run up to the European elections. The only four French political figures cited in this document were current or past members of Marine Le Pen's far-right Rassemblement National (RN). Among them was an Franco-Russian RN adviser at the European Parliament. Matthieu Suc and Marine Turchi report.
France's far-right Rassemblement National party recently announced that it has repaid the controversial loan it took out with Russian financial institutions. In doing so, Marine Le Pen's party is seeking both to portray itself as a good financial manager and remove what has become a political millstone around its neck since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Yet the party's announcement came just five days after revelations by Mediapart raised fresh concerns over the close links between the the French party and the Putin regime at the time the loan was arranged. As Marine Turchi reports, questions still linger over exactly how the loan was obtained and the commissions that were paid to arrange it.
This week the publication of a Parliamentary inquiry into foreign interference in France will reveal the close ties between Marine Le Pen's far-right Rassemblement National (RN) and the Russian regime of Vladimir Putin. The party, formerly known as the Front National, was itself responsible for this investigation and chaired the inquiry; on the surface this looks like an attempt at transparency. In reality, it was simply a ploy to try to clear its name, though the party is still furious over the contents of the final report, parts of which have been leaked. Mediapart spent many hours following the hearings conducted by the committee. Here Matthieu Suc and Marine Turchi report on a process that became a charade.
The French far-right presidential election candidate Marine Le Pen, who will face Emmanuel Macron in a deciding vote between the two on April 24th and who has previously shown support for the Kremlin over its conflict with Ukraine, has said she is opposed to sanctions on Russian oil and gas.
Exiled Russian oligarch Sergei Pugachev, who became dubbed “the Kremlin’s banker”, was once part of Vladimir Putin’s inner circle, until he was eventually cast out by the Russian president and took refuge abroad. In this interview with Mediapart, he details how Putin and his close allies, what he calls “a junta which has captured power, all the money and all the institutions of the state”, function. He denounces a system of corruption on a vast scale, including that of foreign politicians, argues why the decision to wage war on Ukraine marks “the end of Putin’s Russia”, and describes French President Emmanuel Macron’s frequent calls to Putin as “ridiculous”.
For years, Russia led a vast campaign to promote its standing and influence in western Europe, and particularly in France, where the Kremlin’s soft-power strategy had notably, and successfully, targeted political and business circles. In this interview with Mediapart, Marlène Laruelle, director of the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at the George Washington University, details the history and reach of Russia’s drive to gain influence in France, and which was “destroyed in a matter of days, and for several years to come” following its invasion of Ukraine.
The far-right Rassemblement National – the former Front National – was in serious financial difficulty after the Parliamentary and presidential elections in 2017 and was bailed out by a loan of 8 million euros. That loan, Mediapart can reveal, came from French businessman Laurent Foucher who has a range of commercial interests in Africa and who is close to Nicolas Sarkozy's former right-hand man Claude Guéant. The loan was transferred from a bank in the United Arab Emirates but questions still remain over the precise origin of the money. Karl Laske and Marine Turchi report.
