Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Macron hits Le Pen on Russia ties
Loan makes Putin her ‘banker,’ he says in French debate
PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron criticized his far-right challenger, Marine Le Pen, Wednesday over her ties to Russia, her suspicion of the European Union and her grasp of figures, in a play for the votes he needs to win another 5-year term.
In their only televised debate before voters have their say in Sunday’s runoff, Macron accused Le Pen of dishonesty in her election promises. Le Pen, whom Macron beat in the last presidential election five years ago, is doing better in polls this time although she still trails Macron.
The French leader particularly criticized a loan taken out by Le Pen’s party in 2014 from a Russian-Czech bank. He said that debt meant that, if elected president, Le Pen’s hands would be tied when dealing with the Kremlin.
“You are speaking to your banker when you speak of Russia, that’s the problem,” Macron charged in the evening primetime debate that was expected to be watched by millions.
“You made a choice which, obviously, acted as a constraint on your political position and does not make you independent on that issue. That is a fact,” Macron said.
Le Pen bristled at Macron’s suggestion that she is beholden to Russia. She described herself as “totally free.” She said her party is repaying the loan and called him “dishonest” for raising the issue.
Macron, a pro-European centrist, emerged ahead from the April 10 first round and is leading in opinion polls. But Le Pen, an anti-immigration nationalist who has gained ground this year by tapping anger over inflation, has significantly narrowed the gap in public support compared to 2017, when she lost with 34% of the vote to Macron’s 66%.
Both candidates had prepared carefully for Wednesday’s debate. But Le Pen, having been picked to speak first, started off before the debate’s opening jingle had finished playing. Inaudible because of the music, she had to stop and start again. She apologized.
Once the debate began, Macron zeroed in on Le Pen’s voting record as a lawmaker and questioned her grasp of economic figures.
Many French, especially on the left, say they still don’t know whether they will even go to the polls.
THE RUSSIA ISSUE
Macron was not the only one who brought up the $976 million loan from the First Czech-Russian Bank. Hours before the final debate, imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny urged French voters to back incumbent Emmanuel Macron and alleged that far-right challenger Marine Le Pen is too closely linked to Russia.
Questions about Le Pen’s ties to Moscow have emerged amid Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine. She noted she has condemned the Feb. 24 invasion “without ambiguity.”
Earlier in the campaign, she had dismissed questions about the loan to her National Front party, which has been rebranded as the National Rally. The bank has since been dissolved.
Navalny, who is Putin’s chief domestic foe, said in the long thread in French that he wanted to tell Le Pen’s supporters about corruption in Russia and how it has tainted banks like the First Czech-Russian Bank.
“This bank is a well-known money-laundering agency created at the instigation of Putin,” Navalny tweeted, although he did not point to any evidence other than cite his own investigations into corruption in Russia. “This is selling political influence to Putin.”
A 2019 study by the Washington-based Alliance for Securing Democracy at the German Marshall Fund found that the First Czech-Russian Bank had been a “a key cog in Moscow’s attempt to swing political contests overseas — and how this bank sought to use existing campaign finance loopholes to achieve political objectives.”
Le Pen’s anti-immigration party was a focus of the study, saying the bank had been involved in being a “vehicle for money-laundering by corrupt elites on a massive scale.” It also cited “Russian state-sanctioned interference in the Western political system” in the form of the loan to the National Front.
Le Pen has said her party went to the First Czech-Russian Bank after French and European banks refused to lend it money.
Before Navalny’s tweets, Le Pen again defended herself against suspicions of being beholden to the Kremlin. She told reporters earlier this month that she doesn’t believe the FCRB was under the orders of Russian leaders.
She added that her party is still paying off the loan, without clarifying who the creditors are.
“This loan didn’t come with a friendly interest rate. It was signed at 6%,” she said.
“I am, of course, available for any bank, American, from South America, that would want to take over this loan,” she said.
She added: “If a French bank wants to buy this loan, it would, of course, be at the same conditions, very advantageous terms for the bank.”
French law now forbids loans to political parties from non-European Union countries.