The French far-right National Rally (RN) party, accused in a Washington Post investigation of insisting on maintaining ties with the Kremlin and seeking to weaken France's support for Ukraine, today denounced "a plot" while confirming its willingness to review sanctions targeting Russia.
According to the US newspaper's investigation, Russia is conducting a subversion operation in France, in which Marine Le Pen's far-right party is allegedly playing a major role.
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The newspaper cites "Kremlin documents obtained by a European security agency" which implicate Vladimir Putin's entourage, whose methods, according to the same source, combine the influence of social media - led by "troll farms" - and the support of far-right parties.
The broader goal is to destabilize Europe, according to the Washington Post.
"All the governments of Western Europe will change", assures Jean-Luc Chafosse, a former MEP linked to the RN, quoted by the American newspaper.
The Washington Post, in an investigation published on Saturday, also reports that Safoze "leases a floor of his residence" in Strasbourg to the second-in-command of the Russian embassy in France - who was on the Council of Europe until Russia's exclusion from it in March 2022.
"This is all a plot," National Rally spokesman Laurent Jacobelli reacted, speaking on Sud Radio. He claimed that "there is no connection" between Russia and his party.
Last June, the Macron government's rapporteur to a parliamentary committee had characterized the National Front (the FN, which was subsequently renamed the National Rally, RN) a "transmission belt" for Russia's positions and insisted on the party's "alignment" with "Russian discourse" during the "illegal annexation" of Crimea in 2014, an "alignment" that occurred shortly after a loan to the party was signed by a Czech-Russian bank.
"The RN is indeed the Kremlin's spokesman in France" and "plays a key role in relaying Putin's propaganda," President Emmanuel Macron's Renaissance presidential party said in a message to Platform X, following the Washington Post investigation.
This position was rejected by Zacobelli, who recalled the RN's "clear position" on Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which was condemned by Marine Le Pen as early as February 2022.
Putin's pawn is the National Rally of Le Pen - The party calls it a plot
But the party remains skeptical about "offensive arms aid" given to Kiev and opposes "futile embargoes" imposed on Moscow. Five months before the European elections, Zacobelli also made no secret of the fact that a victory for the far right would cause "a radical change, especially in the sanctions imposed on certain countries because of their policies".
